Modi government’s tenure has been quite eventful as far as the country’s political atmosphere is concerned. The opposition was at loggerheads with the BJP from the word go and was constantly trying to corner the government over every possible issue. However, going by the mega Times group online poll, it seems that the Modi government enjoys considerable popularity among the electorate. This comes as a major shot in the arm for the BJP given that the Lok Sabha elections are only a few weeks away. The fact that sentiment of the voters of the country is in favour of the Modi government at such a crucial juncture goes on to suggest what the election results will be like.
The most crucial finding of the poll is that 83% of the 2 lakh respondents have said that Modi government was the most likely outcome of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. This clearly points towards the massive popularity that PM Modi enjoys within the country. Moreover, 84% of the respondents to the survey said that they would prefer Modi as the prime ministerial candidate if the elections were to be held today. When it comes to popularity levels, no one even hovers around PM Modi. In fact, the Congress president Rahul Gandhi stood at a distant second position with merely 8.33% of the survey respondents voting in his favour. This shows that the kind of popularity that PM Modi enjoys is absolutely unmatched.
The poll was conducted between February 11 and 20 in 9 languages across 13 media properties of the Times group. Therefore, the poll represents the real sentiment of the nation to a substantial extent before the 2019 general election. As far as the performance of the Modi government is concerned, it has also been rated highly in the survey. While 59.51% of the respondents said that its performance was very good, 22.29% of the respondents rated it as good. Therefore, 81.80% of the total number of respondents seem impressed with the government’s performance and have rated it highly.
As far the political issues raised by the opposition in the recent past are concerned, it seems that the general sentiment is in favour of the Modi government. 65.51% of those who took the survey denied that minorities feel insecure under the Modi government. It is interesting to note that the opposition and the left-liberal cabal in the media had time and again raised issues of growing intolerance in the country and how the BJP-led NDA government was creating fear amongst the minorities in the country. The results of the poll shows otherwise. On the issue of Rafale debate, 74.59% of the respondents were of the opinion that the Rafale controversy will not make any impact on the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The opposition had pinned its hopes on these issues. But it seems that the opposition has not gained much out of it.
This mega poll by the Times group strongly suggests that PM Modi remains popular within India and he is most likely to return as India’s Prime Minister in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.