Party will also improve seat tally: Survey
The BJP is set to decimate the Congress and retain Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh for the third time in-a-row in the upcoming Assembly polls.
According to the pre-poll survey conducted by Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) for CNN-IBN and The Week, Shivraj Singh Chouhan will not only retain his chair for the third time in a row, but under his leadership the BJP will also improve its seat tally.The survey showed that the BJP will bag 148-160 seats in a House of 230. In the 2008 Assembly polls, the BJP had won 143 seats.
The findings clearly established that despite the Congress’ success in putting up a united face under the leadership of Jyotiraditya Scindia, the voters have not forgotten the tag of “bimaru” State attached to MP under the successive Congress Governments before Chauhan considerably changed that image.
The Congress is expected to win merely 52 to 62 seats as against its tally of 71 seats in the last Assembly polls.The BJP’s vote share is also set to go up from 37. 6 per cent to 44, whereas the Congress is expected to marginally improve from 32.4 per cent to 33.
Fringe players are likely to be major losers. Incidentally, in the 2008 polls, Uma Bharti had floated her own outfit and contested more than 200 seats. She got five seats and secured 5.4 per cent votes. This time around those voters seem to be going back to the BJP.
The survey showed that almost three-fourths of the respondents were satisfied with the performance of the Chief Minister. This speaks volume about the ability of Chouhan to take his governance to every strata of society.
Similarly, Chief Minister Raman Singh is set to score a hat-trick in Chhattisgarh. A series of welfare schemes, especially the State’s own food security measures, seem to pay rich dividends, whereas the Congress clearly suffers from bitter infighting and lack of leadership.
The BJP is set to improve its vote percentage from 40.3 to 46 and its seat tally to 61-71 from 50. In the House of 90, the Congress’ tally is likely to slip to 16-24 from 38 and its vote share can come down to 32 from 38.6. The BSP is expected to retain its two seats while others could win 1-5 seats.