According to a survey conducted by Dainik Bhaskar in the state of Madhya Pradesh, the BJP government led by chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is set to return to power with a wide margin. This comes in the backdrop of vicious propaganda about anti-incumbency against the present chief minister given that Chouhan has been the chief minister of the state since 2005 and has been elected again and again by the electorate.
The results of the survey are encouraging for the BJP. According to this survey, 51 per cent of the respondents prefer Shivraj Singh Chouhan to remain the chief minister of the state, the elections will be held end of this year. And merely 34 per cent of the respondents preferred the Congress leader, Jyotiraditya Scindia. Around 2 lakh 31 thousand people participated in the survey. The survey consisted of people from various fields of life. 35 percent of them were office goers, 24 per cent were students, 19 per cent were entrepreneurs, 12 per cent were farmers and the rest were housewives.
Coming to party lines, the results seem even more encouraging for the incumbent government. 63 percent of the respondents want the ruling BJP which has been in power for 15 years, to come back to power. As opposed to this, merely 37 per cent of the respondents preferred Congress over the BJP. More than half of the respondents consider the BJP government in the state to be a government of strong resolve, another 17 per cent consider it to be average and only the remaining 33 per cent seem disenchanted by the Shivraj government. As far as the Congress is concerned, one-thirds of the respondent believe that toppling the BJP government will be an uphill task for the Rahul Gandhi led party. While 32 per cent of the respondents stated that they will vote on prime minister Modi’s face, only 3 per cent respondents agreed to vote on Rahul Gandhi’s face value. This sums up the entire story. As opposed to prime minister Modi, Rahul Gandhi seems to enjoy little or no popularity which further complicates things for the already troubled Congress.
This survey has corroborated the immense and unconditional support that chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan enjoys in the state. He has taken the state on the path of development and is seen as the face of development in the state. His popularity has been and still is unmatched in the state despite all attempts by the Congress to defeat him this time around. There is no one in the Congress who can even challenge the popularity that he enjoys at the grassroot level. It seems that the Madhya Pradesh chief minister is yet again poised to defeat the bane of anti-incumbency in the state. While anti-incumbency approach among the voters has time and again proved to be the undoing of the tallest of political leaders, Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s popularity seems to defeat this electoral theory every time.
Opinion polls, the opposition parties and the Lutyens’ media had been trying to write off the present Madhya Pradesh chief minister. It was being said that anti-incumbency is going to be a massive factor in the state and that the incumbent government no longer enjoys the kind of popularity it used to. Certain sections of the media have been suggesting, time and again, that the days of the BJP government in the state are over and that the Congress enjoys an edge over BJP in the run up to the Assembly polls. Going by this survey, it seems that the BJP enjoys a comfortable position in the state on account of the immense support and popularity that the incumbent chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan enjoys in the state. His popularity is based on brisk development and stupendous growth of the state and not on political manipulations. That is why he still seems to enjoy an unmatchable standing in Madhya Pradesh despite the myth of anti-incumbency against him.