Lok Sabha polls 2024 survey: Narendra Modi is all set to return as Prime Minister for the third term with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance on course to win a comfortable majority in the Lok Sabha elections scheduled to be held in 2024, the India Today-CVOTER ‘Mood of the Nation’ survey has predicted.
Notwithstanding efforts to put up a strong fight against the Bharatiya Janata Party, the united ‘INDIA’ bloc of 26 Opposition parties will fail in denying Modi a third term, the survey has predicted. As per the opinion poll findings released last week, the NDA is poised to win 306 seats in the 543-strong House while the INDIA bloc of the Opposition is expected to fall short of a majority and finish at 193 seats.
The findings of the latest survey suggest a marginal shift from the results of the same survey conducted in January this year. As per the survey findings released earlier this year, the NDA was expected to win 298 seats while a united Opposition was predicted to win 153 seats, 40 seats lower than the projections in the August round of the survey.
The suggested trend comes as a mixed bag for the Opposition as it projects the Opposition falling short of a majority despite showing a rise in its graph. The bigger worry, however, should come for the BJP if the trend seen between January and August continues to hold. The increase of 40 seats over the 153 seats it was projected to win in January this year corresponds to a growth of 26 per cent. If the trend holds, the BJP could find itself up for a close contest where things may go either way.
For now, the BJP sits pretty in a comfortable position as far as surveys so far are concerned. The findings are in line with the results of opinion polls conducted by other outlets as well which place the NDA ahead of the INDIA bloc by a comfortable margin. Most opinion polls, however, have predicted a fall in the NDA’s tally as well as the BJP while projecting a defeat for the Opposition bloc despite registering healthy growth.
The united Opposition of 26 parties which decided to name itself the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) also has some takeaways from the survey. Only 33 per cent of the respondents believed that the INDIA bloc would be able to defeat the BJP, while 54 per cent said otherwise.
Is the rechristening of the United Progressive Alliance as INDIA likely to have a positive impact on voters? While 39 per cent of those surveyed replied in the affirmative, 30 per cent disagreed. Another 18 per cent said that the new name INDIA would neither fetch votes nor was it a catchy name. The rest were undecided on how the change in names would affect the elections.
On the question of leadership within the INDIA bloc stepping into the Lok Sabha elections, 24 per cent saw Congress MP Rahul Gandhi as the most suited as the PM face, while West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal shared the second spot with 15 per cent votes each.
The findings of the survey suggest a major rise in the graph for Rahul who found the support of only 13 per cent of respondents in the January round of the survey.