Nearly Half Of 57 Lakh Surveyed Want Modi As PM, Rahul Gandhi Lags Far Behind With Just 11 Per Cent Votes 

An online survey carried out by the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), an advocacy group mentored by Prashant Kishor, has found that 48 per cent of the approximately 57 lakh people surveyed preferred Prime Minister Modi as the leader capable of taking the “agenda of the nation” forward. The survey reached out to people across 712 districts of the country over a span of 55 days.

The survey results document that gulf in the favourability ratings of the PM and the opposition leaders. The Congress Party President Rahul Gandhi was favoured by a mere 11 per cent of those surveyed as a leader who could potentially take the country forward while regional satraps like Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress and Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party could not muster double digit approval ratings.

Among the top priority issues identified by those surveyed are questions of women’s empowerment, farming crisis, education in health and hygiene, sanitation and economic inequality. Also, prominent personalities like Akshay Kumar, Raghuram Rajan and MS Dhoni among others have been identified as those who should play an active role in politics.

It has been observed that the current survey is quite similar to the one commissioned by Kishor mentored Citizens for Accountable Governance in 2013 where Narendra Modi had emerged as the preferred choice for Prime Minister. Kishor, who was an integral part of the PM’s campaign team in 2014, has subsequently worked with the Mahagatbandhan in Bihar in 2015 and helmed the campaign strategy for the Congress in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections. It is however being rumoured that Kishor is back with the Bharatiya Janata Party and is said to be handling the celebrations of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.