BJP Will Look East for 2019 Lok Sabha Election to Make up for Shortfall in Other States

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told News18 Network that the BJP can gain in Odisha, West Bengal and other states where it did not win many seats in 2014.

New Delhi: The ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) would be looking at the East as a fertile catchment area in the next Lok Sabha polls to make up for the short-fall in states where it has already peaked.

"We can gain in Odisha, West Bengal, those states from where we did not win many seats," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told News18 Network on being asked to comment on BJP's plans for the upcoming elections, especially in states the party registered very high strike rate in the last Lok Sabha polls.

The BJP won more than 250 of the 300 Lok Sabha seats up for grabs in north, west and central India with a strike rake of almost 90% to form the first single-party majority government in India since 1984.

However, there have been concerns in the BJP after the recent Rajasthan by-polls and Gujarat Assembly elections regarding the party’s prospects in states where local anti-incumbency may impinge on the General Elections 2019.

So, West Bengal and Odisha which together send 63 MPs to the Lok Sabha are being seen as virgin territory where the party is making renewed attempt to increase political and electoral footprint to mop up numbers in 2019.

In both the states, the BJP has emerged as the main opposition to the ruling dispensation. Both states are governed by regional parties where the BJP is not facing political constrains due to the presence of a dominant NDA ally as in the case of Andhra Pradesh.

The BJP also sees a scope to improve its tally in the north-eastern states which together elect 25 MPs to the Lok Sabha.

"In the north-east our party is gaining momentum. Modiji has presented a corruption-free government and the kind of governance our party has given, I am sure we will win the next LS elections of the basis of our performance," Jaitley told News18 Network.

The BJP and its allies now have 14 MPs from the region. Party preparations in seven NE states are being led by Assam Minister for Education and Health Himanta Biswa Sarma.
Source: News18.com

ABP News-Lokniti-CSDS Prediction on Modi Government Another Term

A survey has found that in the event of a Lok Sabha election in the country today, BJP-led NDA may get a total of 293-309 seats. This is 30 seats less than what NDA won in 2014 Lok Sabha Elections.

New Delhi: The Narendra Modi-led government continues to ride high on its popularity, even as the recent Gujarat election results jolted some nerves in the party.

If parliamentary polls were held now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would easily secure another term although anti-incumbency is slowly catching up with him, a survey by ABP News-Lokniti-CSDS has predicted.

The survey has found that in the event of a Lok Sabha election in the country today, BJP-led NDA may get a total of 293-309 seats. This is 30 seats less than what NDA won in 2014 Lok Sabha Elections.

If NDA loses 30 seats out of 336 it won in 2014 elections, it means BJP may finish short of the majority mark of 272. In 2014 BJP won 282 seats, leading the NDA, which in total got 336 seats.

The mood-of-the-nation survey also shows a steady rise in the United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) seat tally and the Congress's vote share.

In May 2017, a similar survey had predicted 331 seats for the BJP-led NDA alliance.

The slight dip in the BJP’s popularity seems to be benefitting the Congress party the most. According to the survey, UPA can get 127 seats and Others 115.

The survey says the Congress now has a 25 per cent vote share - up 4 points from May 2017 and 6 points from the 19 per cent it had tallied in 2014 general election. Its allies are projected to secure 5 per cent of the votes, a slight dip since May 2017’s survey.

Prime Minister Modi’s own personal popularity has also declined in the last eight months, although he continues to be the most popular leader by quite a distance. In May 2017, 44% of the voters had wanted him to return as prime minister in the event of a snap election. Now, the same figure is down by 7 percentage points to 37%.

The survey also shows that Rahul Gandhi’s popularity has gone up. Around 48% of respondents agree that Rahul Gandhi is competent to be the prime minister of the country. This is an 8% increase from the March 2014 pre-poll survey by Lokniti before the Lok Sabha elections that had found 40% of the respondents wanting Rahul Gandhi to be the prime minister.

The survey also concluded complete dissatisfaction with BJP government’s work is now at its highest in the last three years. 17% of respondents were fully dissatisfied with the BJP government; while 23% of the respondents were somewhat dissatisfied from the government, according to the survey. This is an increase from the 2017 survey when the numbers were at 15% and 12% respectively.

This dissatisfaction with Modi government’s performance has increased across all the regions.

The survey was conducted between January 7 and 20 across 175 parliamentary seats in 19 states. Of the 14,336 respondents, 51 per cent expressed satisfaction with the government's performance while 41 per cent said they were dissatisfied. In May 2017, 64 per cent were satisfied with the government's performance.
Source: news18.com

Republic TV National Approval Ratings: Why Narendra Modi's Popularity still Remains Intact?

Republic TV's national approval ratings conducted with the help of C Voter show that Narendra Modi is clearly ahead as most popular Prime Minister at 62.7 per cent.

Rahul Gandhi stands at the second position with 12.6 per cent followed by Sonia Gandhi (4.4 per cent), Manmohan Singh (4.3 per cent), Arvind Kejriwal (1.6 per cent), Nitish Kumar (1.5 per cent). When only two options were given for Prime Ministerial choice, 66 per cent people chose Narendra Modi, 28 per cent chose Rahul Gandhi and the remaining 6 per cent chose none.

Narendra Modi has definitely delivered some positives such as strong leadership to the nation. He is also a hard working Prime Minister, brave enough to take strong decisions and his government remained reasonably honest or say scam free till date. He has also implemented a lot of public benefiting programmes. Not only India, but the world also sees him as a no-nonsense leader who is honestly working for the upliftment of the nation.

However, there have been failures too. Although his government took stringent steps like demonetisation to curb black money, but still not many black money hoarders have been booked yet. Corruption still remains deeply rooted within the bureaucracy. The economy's health is not good at the moment although it is likely to improve. Many experts think that Arun Jaitley should be sacked from the finance ministry because he is not capable of managing the economy.

An eye catching failure is with the agrarian sector. Despite electoral promises, Narendra Modi-led government till date has failed in uplifting the distressed farmers. Even the electoral promise of providing MSP (50 per cent of input cost) to agricultural produce has not been fulfilled. The government has also failed in generating employment opportunities. India's GDP is mostly dependant on the service sector and service sector is never known for employment generation. Another reason of unemployment is lack of skill among the educated youth.

Although the MUDRA scheme did partly succeeded in generating employment but that success remains insignificant as more and more unemployed youth join the existing population each year. 'Make in India' is yet to kick start. Big ticket reforms in social sector are yet to take place. Other social parameters that remain unchanged are health, connectivity, primary education (rural), tribal welfare etc.

If we expect that Narendra Modi will make India developed in just five years then we are in living in a fool's paradise. It requires much more time. The only consolation is that Narendra Modi has intent and is doing hard work to achieve significant growth in all indexes.

In a democracy, the government should always be criticised for its failures despite the intent and hard work. Criticism should always be ruthless one. However, one should understand that criticism shouldn't cross the thin line and turn into cynicism. And I feel that's the root cause of Modi's popularity.

The opposition in India blames Narendra Modi for all and sundry under the Sun. Their criticism has in fact become cynical which the public understands. That's why when there's a genuine criticism of his failure, people consider it as routine cynicism by the opposition.

Let's look the above popularity figures once again. There was a time when Arvind Kejriwal was ranked above Rahul Gandhi in popularity for the Prime Minister's post. Now he is trailing with just 1.6 per cent. It's because he over indulged in opposing for just opposition sake. That's why he lost both popularity and credibility.

The closest rival of Narendra Modi in popularity was Nitish Kumar. Had the Congress named Nitish Kumar as the Prime Ministerial candidate by 2015, I think Narendra Modi would have been facing huge competition by now. But despite Nitish Kumar's popularity he had no organisation outside Bihar and even in Bihar his organisation's strength is at number 3. Thus he found it better to join Narendra Modi for his longer political success as Bihar leader.

Thus, in conclusion, a popular leader can remain popular despite some glaring failures in the absence of a credible alternative. I think that's the reason why Narendra Modi still maintains his popularity.
Source: merinews.com