The Bharatiya Janata Party may once again be in power in Uttarakhand in the assembly elections which are due in the state early 2022, a latest opinion poll has projected.
The Bharatiya Janata Party may once again be in power in Uttarakhand in the assembly elections which are due in the state in early 2022, a latest opinion poll has projected. According to the India News-Jan Ki Baat poll projections, the BJP could get a comfortable majority and win up to 35-38 seats in the 70-member assembly. The Congress, which at the moment is witnessing internal rebellion, is expected to be the runners-up with 27-31 seats followed by the Aadmi Aadmi Party with one to six seats. To recall, the BJP had won 57 seats in the last assembly elections.
The News-Jan Ki Baat poll projects that the BJP would end up with more seats even though it would get just slightly more vote share than its main rival, the Congress. The poll, in which over 5000 respondents participated, showed that while the BJP could secure around 39 per cent of the vote share, the Congress could corner 38.2 per cent of the votes. Arvind Kejriwal's AAP is seen to be winning 11.7 per cent of the votes.
A total of 69 per cent of respondents believed that Narendra Modi government schemes would benefit the BJP in the state assembly elections while 31 per cent felt otherwise. One of the interesting observations is that when it comes to the anti-incumbency factor, 60 per cent of the respondents said the factor would go against candidates while 30 per cent believed it would be against the party while 10 per cent believed that there is anti-incumbency.
The Opinion Poll highlighted that 47 per cent of the respondents believed that unemployment and migration would be the most important issue in the forthcoming election while 20 per cent of people cited health and water as key issues. Another 12 per cent of those surveyed cited education while 10 per cent said inflation could be an important issue in the election.
Caste and Religious Dynamics
The Poll found that 45 per cent each of Brahmins and Rajputs voting in favour of the BJP while 35 per cent of the same favoured the Congress. The Congress could see a lion's share of its votes coming from the Muslim community (85 per cent) and the Sikh community (60 per cent). The Congress, the survey found, also found favour among 75 per cent of the Scheduled Caste voters.
Popular Chief Ministerial Face
The Jan-Ki-Baat survey found the most popular choice among the people surveyed for the chief minister's post is Pushkar Singh Dhami (40 per cent) followed by Harish Rawat (30 per cent). Another 20 per cent of the respondents backed BJP leader Anil Baluni for the chief minister's post followed by Col Ajay Kothiyal (retd) of the AAP with nine per cent of the votes.
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