Panic in BJP after latest Gujarat opinion poll shows Cong closing gap

After the announcement of all sops and inauguration of a slew of new projects by the Gujarat government and the Prime Minister, the Election commission has finally announced the dates for the Gujarat Assembly elections. The state’s atmosphere has been fully charged even before the announcement of the two-phase elections to be held on December 9 and 14, 2017.

Two opinion polls were conducted by two different agencies at a gap of one month 24 days and the findings of these two surveys are worrying the ruling BJP. Findings of the polls show that as the polls are approaching, the Congress is gaining ground and BJP is losing the same at a very fast pace.

Lokniti CSDS conducted an opinion poll for ABP News channel, the results of which were announced on August 31. According to the findings of that poll, the BJP could win between 144 and 152 seats and the Congress between 26 and 32 seats whereas others could get 3 to 7 seats. According to this poll, BJP could garner 59 per cent, Congress 29 per cent and others 12 per cent of the vote share.

Now, yesterday, October 24, India Today has come out with an opinion poll conducted by Axis. According to this latest poll, BJP can get 110-125 seats, Congress can get 57-65 seats and others can get 0-2 seats. As far as the voting percentage is concerned, BJP got 48 per cent, Congress 38 per cent and vote percentage for others remain the same with 12-14 per cent.

If we take the findings of these two polls and analyse them, we will see a trend which reflects that the Congress’ vote share has increased from 29 per cent to 38 per cent and BJP vote percentage has gone down from 59 per cent to 48 per cent in a space of less than two months. It means an 9 per cent gain for the Congress and an 11 per cent drop for BJP. This change has taken place in just one month and 24 days. Almost similar number of days are left for the polls and if BJP’s slide continues and the Congress increases its share by even 6 per cent, then the Congress can go up to 44 per cent and BJP can come down from 48 per cent to 42 per cent. This reflects that BJP has tough days ahead.