BJP chasing SP in UP, BSP runners up, Congress a distant straggler

New Delhi: The Samajwadi Party has a slight edge in the UP 2017 race, marginally ahead of the BJP. The Congress has virtually fallen off the voters’ radar. These are the two key findings of an opinion poll conducted by ABP News-Lokniti, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) 30 percent of the voters surveyed from July 23rd through August 7th said they would vote for the SP if Vidhan Sabha elections were held right now. The BJP along with its two small allies, Apna Dal (Anupriya Patel faction) and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, is the choice of 27 percent of the voters, followed by the BSP at 26 percent. The Congress party, which has been campaigning quite vigorously in the State of late and has announced a high profile chief ministerial candidate for the election, is nowhere in the race currently with a mere 5 percent voters opting for it in the survey. According to the poll, SP is likely to win between 141-151 seats in the 403-member assembly. BJP is likely to fetch 124-134 seats. BSP 103-113. Congress 8-14. Others in the fray 6-12 As compared to the Vidhan Sabha election held in 2012, the BJP is the biggest gainer in terms of votes with an 11 percentage point swing towards it. However when compared with the 2014 Lok Sabha election, it is down by a massive 16 points. This is working to the benefit of both the SP and the BSP. The survey shows that the BJP is unable to retain the support of about 40 percent of the voters who had voted for it in the 2014 election, and many of these are Jatavs and Yadavs. Nearly three-fourths of Jatavs are now supporting Mayawati’s party as opposed to two-thirds in 2014. Among non-Jatav Dalits, BSP’s recovery is even more impressive with 56 percent voting for the party, which is almost a two-fold increase since 2014. The survey was conducted in the immediate aftermath of the Una flogging incident and the Dayashankar Singh controversy, two issues that have been aggressively raised by Mayawati. The renewed Dalit consolidation behind the BSP, which has been captured by the survey, could therefore partly be an outcome of these incidents. This is only a supposition as the survey did not ask any questions about the incidents. Meanwhile, the survey found only seven percent of Dalit voters to be aware of the Rohith Vemula suicide case. Like the BSP, the SP also seems to have recovered among its core voters - Yadavs and Muslims. The party is doing much better among both communities with the 68 percent of the former and 62 percent of the latter indicating support for at present. In fact, the BSP’s inability thus far to make a dent in SP’s Muslim base and create a Dalit-Muslim alliance is one of the principal reasons the party is lagging in third position at the moment. But with voting still a while away and with four MLAs from the Muslim community having joined the BSP recently, this situation could well change. The BJP meanwhile is drawing most of its support from upper castes and lower OBCs but not to the extent they did two years ago. The survey found that at the moment the BJP is ahead of others in the Western and Eastern parts of the State. The Samajwadi Party is doing well in the Awadh and Rohilkhand regions, and in the Doab and Bundelkhand regions it is a neck and neck situation. The survey highlights a potentially significant fault line within the electorate which, if it persists, could determine the result six months from now – the division based on locality. The Samajwadi Party is doing much better in rural areas (78 percent of Uttar Pradesh is rural) than in urban parts of the State. While 32 percent of rural respondents expressed their support for the ruling party, only 24 percent of urban voters did the same. The BSP on the other hand is getting greater support in towns and cities (29 percent) than in villages (25 percent). An analysis by gender too shows a somewhat significant pattern. The SP and the BJP have an advantage among men whereas BSP is drawing greater support from among women than men. Among both genders however it is the SP which leads other parties as of now. The survey finds that one of the main reasons for the SP being in the lead presently is that the anti-incumbency vote (which is actually fairly strong) is getting split between the BSP and the BJP.  Only 34 percent the respondents who were interviewed were in favour of giving the Samajwadi Party government another chance after the next election and 50 percent were against it. However, among these fifty percent who expressed an anti-SP government sentiment, there isn’t any consolidation behind one party. 39 percent of them are voting for the BJP, 37 percent are with the BSP and the remaining 24 percent are supporting other parties. In terms of chief ministerial preference, the survey found both Akhilesh Yadav and his predecessor Mayawati to be equally popular. Both leaders were the preference of 24 percent voters each (in response to an open ended question that provided no specific names). The Samajwadi Party, however, also seems to be benefitting from the popularity of some of its other leaders. 4 percent of the respondents said they wanted to see SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav as chief minister and 2 percent took his cousin Ram Gopal Yadav’s name for the top job. Mulayam Singh Yadav’s brother Shivpal Yadav, who has threatened to quit the party over his differences with the chief minister, was the spontaneous preference of less than one percent of the respondents. As far as the BJP is concerned, Rajnath Singh was the chief ministerial choice of 7 percent respondents, Adityanath of 5 percent, Varun Gandhi of 3 percent and Narendra Modi of 2 percent. Modi, in fact, enjoys fairly high ratings for his performance as prime minister over the last two years. 68 percent of the voters expressed their satisfaction (full and somewhat) with his work. Moreover, for every voter who expressed complete dissatisfaction with his performance as prime minister, there were two who expressed complete satisfaction. Satisfaction with the NDA government that Modi leads is also quite high at 63 percent. At the same time, however, 52 percent were also of the opinion that Narendra Modi has failed to keep his electoral promise of ushering in Achhe din (good days). The survey also found that price rise is the second most important issue for the electorate of Uttar Pradesh (18 percent) after development (33 percent) at this juncture, and that more voters blame Modi’s government (29 percent) for it than they blame Akhilesh Yadav’s (12 percent). Like the Prime Minister, Akhilesh Yadav too enjoys high favourable ratings with 61 percent of the voters expressing satisfaction with his performance as chief minister over the last four years and 60 percent being satisfied with the work done by the government he leads. Significantly, these overall ratings for Akhilesh Yadav/his government are only slightly less than the ratings for Modi/the NDA government, despite the former having been in power for a much greater period than the latter. On specifics of governance, however, the survey reveals a mixed picture. While the SP government is rated positively on issues such as pace of development, educational and health facilities, electricity supply and bus services, it is rated negatively on issues such as roads, drinking water supply, agriculture and law and order. In fact, when it comes to governance and maintaining law and order, Mayawati’s party is seen as being better than the rest. On being questioned - which party is best for the governance of Uttar Pradesh, 29 percent of the respondents said BSP, 25 percent chose BJP and 24 opted for SP. On the issue of maintaining law and order, 34 percent chose BSP as opposed to 23 and 21 percent who said BJP and SP respectively. BSP is also seen by voters as the least corrupt and nepotistic party. Moreover, when asked to choose between the present SP government and the previous BSP government on the basis of performance, a slightly greater proportion chose Mayawati’s rule to Akhilesh Yadav’s rule, 34:31. These are indicators that the SP, even though ahead in the race at this time, may find the going tough as we head closer to 2017. Finally, the Congress party has almost nothing going for it at the moment. The decision to make Sheila Dikshit its chief ministerial candidate does not seem to be working, at least for now. When respondents were asked whether they support or oppose the decision (the survey fieldwork began about ten days after the announcement of made), 17 percent said it did not make a difference to them and another 40 percent did not express any opinion. Even a question on Priyanka Gandhi taking over Congress’s charge in Uttar Pradesh elicited few responses. With less than six months to go for the election, it will be quite an achievement if the party manages to stage a recovery from this dismal situation that the survey finds it in.