India-Today opinion poll on the assembly election bound
states: Delhi
If 40 per cent of the people want Dikshit to be chief
minister, then definitely they would vote for her. In that case, the vote
percentage would rise. Congress's loss isn't, however, BJP's gain, with the
principal Opposition party getting a 35 per cent vote share, down 1 per cent
from 2008. In fact, Kejriwal pips Delhi BJP state President Vijay Goel to
become Delhi Delhi
Rajasthan:-
Ashok Gehlot's last-ditch attempt in the autumn of his full five-year term to
turn the tide and return to power seems doomed. According to the survey, a
resurgent Vasundhara Raje-led BJP is set for a near-simple majority in the
Assembly elections in December. The 97 seats projected for the Opposition party,
however, fall short of its own assessment of 125 seats in the 200-member House.
The Gehlot-led Congress government's bouquet of schemes
and Rs.2,000 crore in freebies rolled out in the recent past fall flat on
various counts. Firstly, cash in lieu of saris and blankets to the poor and the
attempt to expand the free medicines scheme fivefold by supplying generics
would appeal to sections that already form part of the established Congress
vote bank. The Chief Minister's attempt to target upper-caste poor through the
pension scheme could also end up antagonising the taxpaying public. "My
uncle who retired from a Central Government job has started getting Rs.500 a
month in pension despite owning a Rs.50-lakh house. He is happy but as a
taxpayer, I feel cheated," says a Rajasthan Administrative Service officer.
"We should be doing better than what you are
predicting because of good implementation of our schemes," claims
Satyendra Raghav, Rajasthan Congress spokesperson. But the schemes have often
not reached target beneficiaries, something Raje chose to highlight during her
Suraj Sankalp Yatra in May-August apart from charges of rampant government
corruption. While concluding her yatra in Alwar district, she asked the crowd
if there were even five doctors in the local hospital against the sanctioned 13.
The audience shouted in unison that there were only two. Such a connect also
sees her emerge as the runaway favourite among people surveyed, 42 per cent
choosing her as opposed to 25 per cent opting for Gehlot. "Voters cannot
be influenced through sops by a government which slept for 54 months," says
Raje.
Madhya
Pradesh:- On August 13, drenched crowds wait patiently on the roadside at
Shyamgarh in Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur district to catch a glimpse of Chief
Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on a Jan Ashirwad Yatra (a tour for people's blessings).
As Chouhan's vehicle arrives, they shower petals on him and shout slogans like "Aandhi
nahin toofan hai, Shivraj Singh Chouhan hai (It's not a storm, it's a hurricane;
it's Shivraj Singh Chouhan)". The BJP leader has covered 1,329 km over 48
constituencies by then, addressing 120 meetings from a specially designed stage
on his vehicle. The overwhelming response to his yatra manifests his popularity,
which according to the survey is 57 per cent-the highest among all leaders in
Madhya Pradesh. "The response to my yatra shows BJP is set to make a grand
comeback," he says. "People are happy with the government's
performance." The survey supports Chouhan's optimism. It predicts BJP will
bag 122 out of the 230 Assembly seats.
Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh refuses to accept the
survey's projections. "The elections in November are bound to see BJP's
exit," he says, adding that enormous public money is being wasted on the
stage-managed Jan Ashirwad Yatra-something the voters will not forgive. BJP is
sending senior leaders to assess the ground reality in the state before
announcing poll candidates. Unwilling to be outdone on this front at least, the
Congress is exercising due care in selecting its candidates as well.
Chhattisgarh:-
Chief Minister Raman Singh says his government is poised to score a comfortable
hat-trick. "The good work, development initiatives and pro-poor policies
undertaken over the past 10 years will see us through," he says
confidently. The BJP leader looks calm during public appearances. But he is
leaving no stone unturned to lure voters, sensing a hard-fought BJP-Congress
battle in the offing. Singh's principal opponent, Ajit Jogi, the state's first
chief minister and senior Congress leader, has a drastically different take on
their respective poll prospects. Seated in a wheelchair and clad in a kurta-pyjama,
Jogi tells india
The Congress being a divided house could be another
factor-just as the late Vidya Charan Shukla's revolt against Jogi had hurt the
party badly in 2003, the situation is no different this time. BJP, on the other
hand, appears united and is said to be considering replacements for 20 sitting
MLAs to beat anti-incumbency. In 2008, the party had denied tickets to 18 MLAs.
The survey, however, says Raman Singh is unlikely to reap an electoral dividend
from his populist scheme, the Chhattisgarh Food Security Act, 2012, touted as
being superior to the Centre's Food Security Act as it covers 90 per cent of
the state's population.
