Who should be next PM?

• In the last six months, UPA's electoral standing has slipped dramatically. The Congress has imploded. If a general election were to be held now, Congress would get around 110 seats, its lowest ever tally; in mid-2009 it got 206 seats.
• The NDA has nudged ahead. The BJP has improved its tally from 116 seats in the 2009 general election to around 140 seats now.
• Non-UPA and non-NDA  parties are the real gainers of Congress decline. This is the first time since 1996 that neither of the two leading alliances, UPA and NDA , will be anywhere close to the majority mark of 272 in the Lok Sabha.
• Rahul Gandhi is the clear choice for leadership of the Congress. Narendra Modi is the public's preference for the BJP's prime ministerial candidate. Modi beats Rahul by a 7 per cent margin in a face-off for the next prime minister.
• Those who think Anna Hazare is politically dead will find themselves badly wounded. In a straight contest from any constituency with Rahul, Hazare would win by a landslide.
• Those who believe corruption is no longer an issue will fare worse. The PM's image has suffered because he is perceived as doing nothing.
• The two top rated chief ministers, Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar, who lead the competition by some margin, are from the NDA .

These are some of the remarkable findings of the INDIA TODAY-ORG Mood of the Nation Poll conducted in January 2012. In a nutshell, the next Parliament could see a prime minister from neither the Congress nor BJP. The situation is reminiscent of 1996, but hopefully there will be a PM with more staying power than a H.D. Deve Gowda or I.K. Gujral. Watch video

The steady decline in popular support for Congress has suddenly cascaded into a collapse. Until August 2010, the UPA's support remained at the level of the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. The Mood of the Nation Poll in August 2010 showed the UPA's vote percentage at 34.6 per cent, just marginally lower than the 35.7 per cent it recorded in the 2009 general election. In August 2011, the vote percentage in favour of the UPA had fallen to 29 per cent. It has declined further to 28 per cent in the latest, January 2012, poll, a swing of minus 7.7 per cent since 2009. According to our latest forecast, if Lok Sabha elections were to be held today, the UPA would get between 168 and 178 seats. If the seats tally of the Congress allies, chiefly Trinamool Congress, DMK, Nationalist Congress Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal are counted out, the Congress would manage a tally of around 110 seats, a very sharp fall from the 206 seats it won two and a half years ago. It would also be its lowest tally ever, lower than the 114 seats it won in 1999. This bit of news should shock the party's still complacent leadership.

Who is responsible for decline? Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, once a role model for the middle class, now bears the brunt of their anger. Public opinion is dissatisfied with the Government's weak-kneed response to the corruption scandals that first erupted in the second half of 2010, whether 2G, Commonwealth Games, black money stashed abroad or Adarsh Society. There is little sympathy for the Prime Minister's repeated attempts to distance himself from the scandals that have surrounded his Government. The excuse of 'coalition compulsions' is not working. On the 2G scam, 47 per cent of respondents believe that the Prime Minister and then finance minister P. Chidambaram had prior knowledge of A Raja's machinations that led to precious spectrum being sold to private companies at throwaway prices. Thirty-nine per cent say he should have resigned over the 2G scam compared with 31 per cent who say he should not have. There is equally little sympathy for any action that the Prime Minister claims to have taken against the corrupt. Forty-three per cent say that his actions on corruption suggest he is remote-controlled; 23 per cent say that his actions suggest he is weak and 10 per cent say that his actions suggest he has fallen in love with power. The Prime Minister may not be personally corrupt but he is increasingly viewed as the patron saint of the corrupt.

The once coveted tag of economist-Prime Minister has also come to haunt Manmohan. His Government's clumsy economic management, which has seen a sharp decline in growth and no significant decline in inflation throughout 2011 has damaged him more than either other ministers or the party leadership. Thirty-seven per cent of respondents blame the Prime Minister directly for the price rise compared with 24 per cent who blame Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and 16 per cent who blame Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. Worryingly for the Government, there isn't much optimism about economic prospects. When asked if their quality of life had become worse, better or remained the same between January 2011 and January 2012, the maximum number of respondents (37 per cent) said it had become worse. Forty-nine per cent said they expect it to remain the same over the next six months; 28 per cent expect it to worsen.

In a blow to Sonia Gandhi and Rahul, both of whom like to flaunt their pro-poor credentials, only 26 per cent of respondents believe that the Congress is the best party to address the problems of poverty and unemployment. Thirty-one per cent believe the BJP will be better for the poor, and 35 per cent will trust other parties. Such is the unpopularity of the Prime Minister that he languishes near the bottom of the rankings of the best prime minister of all time. With a favourable rating of only 2 per cent, he is 6 percentage points below Lal Bahadur Shastri who served as prime minister for only two years in the 1960s, when a majority of India's current population was not even born. For once, Sonia is not able to make up for Manmohan's unpopularity. Her long absence because of an undisclosed illness, and only periodic public appearances, have rendered her unable to exercise leadership as before.

Hazare gains popularity

Manmohan is no longer a role model for honesty and integrity in public life. That space has been ceded by him and the larger political class to Anna Hazare. Congress's attempts to force a diluted Lokpal Bill through Parliament have not fooled the public. A massive 63 per cent of respondents agree with Hazare's view that the Lokpal Bill introduced by the Government in Parliament in December is weak and ineffective. Contrary to the Congress's belief that Hazare's influence has petered out, the 74-year-old anti-corruption campaigner's popularity has only increased in the last six months. When asked who they would vote for if both Anna Hazare and Rahul Gandhi were to contest from their constituency, 60 per cent favoured Hazare and only 24 per cent picked Rahul. This is a dramatic turnaround from August 2011, when the Mood of the Nation poll showed that 50 per cent would vote for Rahul and only 37 per cent for Hazare. In another measure of his continuing popularity, Hazare also tops of the list of role models, beating Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul by a wide margin.

BJP inches forward, others leap Despite his popularity, Hazare has stayed away from the temptation of party politics. In the political sphere, the fall of the UPA has been accompanied by a rise in the fortunes of the BJP-led NDA, but not proportionately. The vote share of the NDA in the latest January 2012 poll is 28 per cent, up from 25.7 per cent in the last Lok Sabha poll, a positive swing of 2.3 per cent. This would translate into 180-190 seats if a Lok Sabha election were held today, a tally higher than the UPA's. The BJP gains despite a perceived sense of drift in the party. It may have failed to articulate either a clear leadership candidate or a credible, alternative economic agenda but its seat tally would improve from 116 in 2009 to around 140, making it the single largest party.
The real winners from the 7.7 per cent swing away from the Congress since 2009 are the non-UPA, non-NDA  parties which will corner 44 per cent of the vote, a 5.4 per cent positive swing from 2009. Like the NDA , they will get 180-190 seats. Some of the bigger parties among them will hold the keys to the next government in Delhi. The strength of the non-UPA, non-NDA parties is better news for a fledgling NDA  than for the incumbent upa. Some of the major parties like J. Jayalalithaa's aiadmk, Naveen Patnak's Biju Janata Dal, Andhra Pradesh's Telugu Desam Party and ysr Congress and Assam's Asom Gana Parishad are fighting the Congress and its allies and are thus more likely to join the NDA after the Lok Sabha poll. There is plenty of scope for the NDA to expand as it is currently a seven-party alliance. It had 22 parties during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's tenure as prime minister between 1999 and 2004. The only significant 'other' likely to join the upa is Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party. All this is good news for the BJP, which still forms the crux of any alternative coalition. But other parties could be encouraged to believe they can elect one of their own as prime Minister, with either inside or outside support from the BJP.

Leadership of the future Power in the Congress is divided unequally between the trinity of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. In public perception, there is little doubt about who should be in command now. Fifty-nine per cent would prefer Rahul as Sonia's successor as party president; only 19 per cent favour his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Forty-nine per cent favour Rahul as a replacement for Manmohan as prime minister. Only 14 per cent want Sonia. Manmohan is still tied with Sonia as the preferred choice for prime minister after the next Lok Sabha elections, but both trail Rahul by some distance. The real question mark is over whether Rahul is ready to accept the mantle.
Public opinion is equally clear on who it would like to see as leader of the BJP. Narendra Modi, Gujarat Chief Minister, wins the support of 48 per cent respondents when asked who they would like to see as the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP. Interestingly, BJPPresident Nitin Gadkari had endorsed Modi as his successor and a potential prime ministerial candidate just days earlier. The octogenarian L.K. Advani continues to command a following, winning the support of 24 per cent respondents as the next prime ministerial candidate of the BJP. Leaders of the Opposition in Parliament, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, poll only 10 per cent and 3 per cent respectively. Clearly, much work remains to be done for BJP's Generation Next.

In what is perhaps a sign of the growing popularity of the BJP at the expense of the Congress, Modi beats Rahul comfortably as the most preferred choice for the prime minister (24 to 17 per cent) after the next general election. Rahul's ratings have registered a sharp decline from 29 per cent in August 2010, to 20 per cent in January 2011, to 17 per cent in January 2012. Modi has risen from 9 per cent in August 2010 and January 2011 to 24 per cent in January 2012. At any rate, Modi versus Rahul seems to be the contest that people want to see at the next general election. However, neither can take their crowns for granted. Modi, a highly polarising figure, is unlikely to be acceptable as head of the NDA . Rahul's strength will depend on how many seats the Congress wins in the elections. If the Congress gets only 108, he may not be able to stake claim for prime minister.

Sonia, Manmohan and Rahul

If the NDA needs any lessons on how to win elections it need only study the experiences of Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar who are rated as the top two chief ministers of the country. Unlike the UPA, neither Modi nor Kumar, both serving their second term in office, is suffering from anti-incumbency.

   

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/india-today-opinion-poll-2014-who-should-be-next-pm/1/170858.html

source:www.intoday.in        

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/india-today-opinion-poll-2014-who-should-be-next-pm/1/170858.html