‘Mood of the nation’ shifts a bit toward Rahul, though Modi still most popular

Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains the most popular choice as leader of the country, although his support has dropped in favour of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, according to a recent survey, largely mirroring the recent general election results.Some 49% of respondents in the latest “Mood of the Nation” survey picked Modi as best suited to be prime minister, down six percentage points from February 2024, according to the bi-annual survey conducted by India Today magazine in association with polling agency C-Voter. Rahul’s popularity meanwhile rose by eight percentage points from 13.8% to 22.4%.The gap between the two leaders, although reduced, is still large enough – over 26 percentage points – a sign that the Congress leader is no immediate threat to Modi. medium nocaption112842060Interestingly, according to the India Today survey, Rahul fared better than BJP’s Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath and Nitin Gadkari when respondents were asked who is best suited to be prime minister after Modi. Yogi, though, emerged the most popular chief minister nationally.Some 40,591 respondents were surveyed nationwide between July 15 and August 10, with results also taking into account input from 95,872 interviews from CVoter’s regular weekly tracker. medium nocaption112842023The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost its majority in Parliament in the 2024 general elections following two consecutive elections (2014 and 2019) when it had crossed the halfway-mark on its own. The party bagged 240 seats of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, 32 seats short of a majority this summer.As a result, the BJP was forced to rely on coalition partners, Janata Dal (United) and Telugu Desam Party (TDP), to form the government. The BJP along with its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners won 293 of the 543 seats in the current Lok Sabha.Popularity may have dipped, but..The Mood of the Nation survey showed the BJP-led coalition would marginally improve its tally to 299 seats if a general election was held now. The BJP on its own would get 244 seats, four more than the actual results. The opposition Congress party would also improve its performance, the survey showed, moving up from 99 seats to 106. However, the INDIA bloc tally, according to the poll, would drop from 234 by 1 seat. medium nocaption112841992Performance as PM still robust, but…When asked how they rated the performance of Modi as PM, 58.6% of respondents rated it as outstanding and good, a drop of just two percentage points from the survey conducted before the polls in February.However, it was a significant decline compared to the 71% that Modi got in the MOTN survey conducted in August 2019, soon after he won his second term as PM.Of the 58.6% who rated him outstanding or good, those who rated him outstanding declined from 41.8% to 34.3% , a drop of 7.5 percentage points, while those rating it as good went up from 18.7% to 24.3%, the survey revealed.India Today writes, “Together, they show his sheen fading, while he continues to be seen as the tallest leader, with no clear alternative.”What voters want According to the survey’s respondents, while Modi remains the most popular leader, his government needs to deliver on certain areas, specifically the economy. Around 28.5% say unemployment is the biggest problem in the country today, followed by inflation and poor family incomes.India Today writes, “...NDA’s three big achievements – constructing the Ram temple in Ayodhya, revocation of Article 370 in Kashmir and the several welfare schemes – seem to have reached an expiry date in terms of electoral returns. By contrast, the Modi government’s three biggest failures all pertain to the economy, with unemployment topping the list, followed by price rise and lack of economic growth.”Inputs: India Today, Bloomberg