FEBRUARY 2014

Surveys conducted by three major media groups in January
2014 to know the mood of the nation if general elections
were to be held now have pointed out a major gain for
the BJP and the NDA that it leads. The BJP’s prime
ministerial candidate Narendra Modi also leads the race
for the popular choice of Prime Minister, way ahead of
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Congress chief
Sonia Gandhi or Arvind Kejriwal of the AAP
» POINT OUT TEAM
After assembly elections in five states in
November 2013 and the dramatic rise
of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in New
Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal was billed as the
counter to Narendra Modi. But the recent
turn of events, including the Delhi government’s
dharna against Delhi Police and
utterances of Delhi Law Minister Somnath
Bharti coupled with the expulsion of
dissident MLA Vinod Kumar Binny, has
left a bad taste, projecting the party as a
group of anarchists. Will the Aam Aadmi
Party (AAP) be able to pull up its socks
before the Lok Sabha elections?
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP)
mission 2014 seems to be on
course and its prime ministerial
candidate Narenda Modi is leading
the race by a fair margin, if the recent
surveys conducted by three major media
houses – the ABP News-Nielsen, India
Today-C Voter and CNN-IBN-CSDS, are
taken into account.
Judging by the mood of the nation, if
elections to the Lok Sabha are to be held
now, the Congress Party is all set to face
a drubbing and possibly end up with its
lowest ever tally in two-digits. Likewise,
given the situation, the BJP is likely to
end up with its highest tally and is likely
to cross the 200-seat mark on its own, out
of the total 543 seats, according to the
surveys.
The ABP News-Nielsen survey has
given the Congress 81 seats and the ruling
United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
combine 101 seats. The National Democratic
Alliance (NDA), according to this
survey, will end up with about 226 seats
and the BJP 210 seats. The others are
expected to get 130 seats with the Left
bagging about 30. The survey gives AAP
about 11 seats.
Likewise, the India Today-C Voter
survey predicts that the BJP is likely to get
about 188 seats on its own, about double
than its rival Congress party that may end
up with about 90 seats. The NDA is likely
to get 207 to 217 seats while the UPA will
end up with about 98 to 108 seats. Others
and Left parties are likely to get 223-233
seats.
The CNN IBN-CSDS survey states
that the NDA is likely to get about 211 to
231 seats with the BJP would get anything
between 190 and 210 seats on its own. It
suggests that the UPA will get 107-127
seats with the Congress getting about
92-108 seats. Left parties and others are
likely to get about 204 to 225 seats.
The common thread in all the surveys
is the fact that none of the alliances is in
a position to form the government on
its own. A party or alliance requires 272
seats to be in a position to stake claim
to form the government. With the BJP
and NDA’s improved performances, it is
expected that smaller parties might align
with it after the polls.
Narendra Modi leads all the surveys
17