The unthinkable is now being predicted. PM Modi could be on a treacherous wicket in 2019.
The Lokniti-CSDS-ABP Mood of the Nation Survey published a fortnight back, threw up a faint prospect of the ruling party’s defeat. A few of its topline findings are astonishingly contrarian:
* Modi’s government is about as unpopular right now as the UPA was in July 2013, nine months before its electoral debacle in 2014- “nearly half (47%) of the total 15,859 respondents are of the opinion that the Modi government does not merit another opportunity”.
* While minorities like Muslims, Christians and Sikhs are overwhelmingly against the government, the majority Hindu community is virtually split down the middle over its support/opposition.
* Over the last 12 months, “BJP’s popularity is down seven percentage points if this declining trend continues then the ruling party may well dip below the 30 per cent mark in the next few months.”
* Congress could “net about one in four votes (25 per cent) nationally”; and the erstwhile UPA would secure 31 per cent of the votes across the country.
* Remember, this does not include the Congress’s new found allies, viz Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP) and HD Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular), which could add another 11 percentage points to the “new UPA’s” tally
source the quint