BJP is likely to emerge as the single largest party surpassing the incumbent Congress in the Delhi Assembly polls, ABP News-Nielsen ‘Mood of the Nation’ survey revealed.
The survey claims that BJP may get 32 and Congress 27 seats in the 70-member Assembly. Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is expected to win eight seats. BSP is expected to retain its two and others will manage only one. According to the survey, BJP would have emerged a clear winner if they didn’t have AAP as their competitor as they would have gained another 15 per cent share from the Congress displaying them as the clear winner.
Assembly elections in Delhi are to be held at the end of this year. The survey was carried out between August 14 and 20 2013, and 7,084 respondents were quizzed. The switch of voters from Congress to BJP is mainly due to inability to control inflation (36%) followed by increase in corruption (28%). Switching from Congress to AAP is similar — to control inflation (26%) followed by increase in corruption (25%).
However, BJP still faces an issue of projecting credible leaders as 28% are likely to switch their voting intention from BJP to AAP because of the leadership issue. The survey indicates that Congress hasn’t been able to connect with younger generation. Performance of the Chief Minister Sheila Dixit has been rated as below average with a mean score of 2.62.
Nearly half of respondents (45%) rated the performance of Sheila Dikshit over the last five years as poor/very poor and score is higher (50%) among younger generation (18-23 years). It is interesting to note that 26% of the respondents see Vijay Goel from the BJP as a suitable chief ministerial candidate.
Arvind Kejriwal gets 24% of the share while Sheila Dikshit still has the support of 22%. Performance of the Congress Government has also been rated as below average with a mean score of 2.63.