How is PM Modi’s loss a gain for Rahul Gandhi? Understand the mood of the country

New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains the most popular choice as the country’s leader. However, his/her support has declined in favour of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, according to a recent survey, largely reflecting the recent general election results. According to the bi-annual survey conducted by India Today magazine in collaboration with polling agency C-Voter, about 49% of respondents in the latest “Mood of the Nation” survey considered Modi best suited for the post of Prime Minister. Notably, this is six percentage points less than in February 2024.

Rahul Gandhi’s popularity is increasing

Meanwhile, Rahul’s popularity rose by eight percentage points from 13.8% to 22.4%. The gap between the two leaders, however, has narrowed. However, the gap (over 26 per cent) is still quite large. This indicates that the Congress leader is no immediate threat to Modi. Interestingly, according to the India Today survey, when respondents were asked who is best suited to become prime minister after Modi, Rahul performed better than BJP’s Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath and Nitin Gadkari.

Who is the most popular Chief Minister?

However, Yogi has emerged as the most popular chief minister at the national level. Around 40,591 respondents were surveyed across the country between July 15 and August 10. It also included inputs from 95,872 interviews from C-Voter’s regular weekly tracker. The BJP has lost its majority in Parliament in the 2024 general elections after two consecutive elections (2014 and 2019) when the party had won more than half the seats on its own. The party secured 240 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats this time, 32 seats short of a majority. As a result, the BJP had to rely on alliance partners, the Janata Dal (United) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to form the government. The BJP, along with its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) allies, won 293 of the 543 seats in the current Lok Sabha.

Decline in PM’s popularity

Even though popularity has declined, the Mood of the Nation survey has shown that if general elections were held now, the BJP-led alliance’s seats would increase marginally to 299. The BJP on its own would get 244 seats, four more than the actual result. The survey has shown that the opposition Congress party will also improve its performance. It will increase from 99 seats to 106. However, according to the survey, the India Block’s seats will fall by 1 seat from 234.

Strong as PM

Performance as PM still strong, but… When asked how they rated Modi’s performance as PM, 58.6% of respondents rated it as excellent and good. This is a drop of just two percentage points from the survey conducted before the elections in February. However, it was a significant drop compared to the 71% that Modi got in the MOTN survey conducted in August 2019. This was done soon after he/she won his/her second term as PM. The survey showed that while 58.6% of people rated him/her excellent or good, those who rated him/her excellent dropped from 41.8% to 34.3%, a drop of 7.5 percentage points. While those who rated it as good increased from 18.7% to 24.3%.

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What do voters want?

According to survey respondents, while Modi remains the most popular leader, his/her government needs to work on certain areas, particularly the economy. About 28.5% say the biggest problem facing the country today is unemployment, followed by inflation and poor incomes of families. The NDA’s three biggest achievements are – the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the removal of Article 370 in Kashmir, and numerous welfare schemes, writes India Today. In contrast, the Modi government’s three biggest failures are all related to the economy, with unemployment topping the list, followed by inflation and lack of economic growth.”
(Inputs: India Today, Bloomberg)