In the ongoing drama of political slugfest in Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Yadav family, Chief Minister Akhilesh Singh Yadav seems to have won the battle of perception. A survey conducted by C-Voter showed on Friday that the Chief Minister has emerged stronger than before in the last one month. The survey report suggested that voters overwhelmingly prefer Akhilesh to his father and founder-patriarch of the party Mulayam Singh Yadav as the SP’s CM candidate for next year’s Assembly polls.
Citing C-Voter’s findings, The Times of India’s report on Friday said Akhilesh’s popularity has increased manifold in SP’s traditional bastions in the last one month.
The report said C-Voter conducted two surveys — the first in September and the second in October — since the battle royale between Shivpal- Mulayam and Akhilesh became public. And a comparison of the two survey results suggested Akhilesh has the upper hand.
The survey was conducted on 12,221 people across all 403 Uttar Pradesh Assembly constituencies. Up to 75.7 per cent of respondents would like to see Akhilesh, rather than Mulayam, as the State’s next CM.
Survey report concluded that Akhilesh enjoys a widespread support among Yadavs and Muslims — the SP’s core vote-bank. When asked “Given a chance to pick either (the) son or (the) father, who would you like to see as CM of Uttar PradeshIJ”, 61 per cent of Yadavs and 78.5 per cent of Muslims prefer Akhilesh over his father Mulayam.
Out of the nine category, only “Others SC (Dalits)” category preferred Mulayam over Akhilesh. In this category, Mulayam was picked by 58.4 per cent, while the UP CM got backing of 33.8 per cent. The responses were analysed according to six demographic factors — age group, occupation, monthly income, education, social group, and gender.
Mulayam’s brother and State SP president Shivpal, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to pose any challenge to Akhilesh when it comes to perceived popularity. Up to 83.1 per cent of poll respondents think Akhilesh is more popular than his uncle, and 6.1 per cent think the opposite.
Shivpal’s perceived popularity has actually diminished — up to 6.9 per cent of respondents in the C-Voter’s September poll said he was more popular than his nephew — whereas Akhilesh’s has increased by 6 points, from 77.1 per cent.
The survey suggested Akhilesh has succeeded in portraying himself as a leader of “clean image” in a party that has been accused of “goonda raj”. Sixty-eight per cent of poll respondents said Akhilesh is trying to change his party’s “goonda” image, but only
28.9 per cent think he has succeeded.
More than 63 per cent back Akhilesh’s opposition to let politicians like DP Yadav and gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari join the SP.