BJP set to win Uttarakhand, Congress facing anti-incumbency: Lokniti-ABP News survey

NEW DELHI: Uttarakhand might just be headed for a change of government in the forthcoming assembly elections. If polls in the state are held today, the BJP may bag 35-43 seats in the 70-member Assembly, reducing the incumbent Congress to 22-30 seats, according to Lokniti-ABP News survey. The Congress would likely secure only 33 percent of the total vote. Its main opponent BJP is estimated to get 40 percent of the total vote, down 15 percentage points since the 2014 Lok Sabha election but 7 percentage points up since the 2012 assembly election. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is likely to net 8 percent votes and the remaining 19 percent votes are likely to be distributed among other smaller political players. The survey found Chief Minister Harish Rawat to be the most popular leader in the state, though he leads by a very slim margin. In response to an open-ended question, 19 percent of the respondents said they would like to see Rawat back as chief minister. BJP’s B C Khanduri was the spontaneous choice of 13 percent respondents. The anti-incumbency sentiment against the Congress government is quite strong. 44 percent of the voters who were interviewed said that they are not in favour of the Congress returning to power. Only 34 percent wanted to see it back at the helm. This anti-government feeling is strongest in the Maidan and Garhwal regions of the state. In both regions, the proportion of respondents against the government was found to be greater than the proportion in favour of it, 46 to 31 percent and 43 to 25 percent respectively. Only in the Kumaon region is there a pro-incumbency sentiment with more voters (44 percent) wanting the Congress government to continue than go (42 percent). Even as demonetization gets a thumbs-up from the voters in Uttarakhand, it is unlikely to be an issue on which voters will cast their ballots. When asked about it directly, majority of voters (56 percent) said demonetization will matter a lot to them while voting. However in response to an open-ended question asking voters to state the single most important issue for them in the upcoming assembly election, hardly one percent voters stated demonetization related issues. Most voters expressed concerns about unemployment, with about 18 percent of them stating joblessness as the key voting issue. 17 percent spoke of development and 11 percent said inflation would be the single most important issue for them.