PM Modi has been trying his best for several months now, finding Yogi on a slippery slope, to put a break and reverse the direction of the continuous fall indicated by the surveys, but has utterly failed as indicated by the latest result of the survey conducted during December 16-30 for Times Now – Navabharat by VETO.

Though the latest survey has still predicted a comfortable win for the BJP with seats for the NDA in a range of 230-249 in the house of 403, it falls by over hundred seats from Yogi Adityanath’s claim of winning 350 seats only a few months ago. Given the last election result of 2017 in which NDA had won 325 seats, the survey indicates a heavy loss this time in the range of 76-95 seats. BJP’s own seats were 312. The same survey has predicted SP alliance likely to win seats in the range of 137-152, three times than the 47 seats the party had won on its own. It is clear that the political wind is blowing against the BJP and in favour of the SP, however, it may take a little more time for it to be termed as a wave, though it has created a very difficult situation of Modi and his party.

The present survey result has projected a vote share of 38.6 per cent for the NDA, which is nearly three per cent lower than about 41 per cent they have got in 2017. As against this SP alliance’s vote share is likely to be 34.4 per cent, which can be considered a great improvement. It should be noted that BJP’s vote share that time was 39.67 per cent while SP’s share was 21.82 per cent.

The survey has also found that BSP’s vote share may go down from 22.2 per cent in 2017 to just 14.1 per cent this time. In terms of seats BSP can win seats in the range of 9-14. For Congress, the survey has predicted seats in single digit in the range 4-7. In 2017, BSP had bagged 19 and Congress 7 seats. Congress’s vote share was 6.25 per cent.

Just in the beginning of December, ABP-CVoter survey had predicted NDA’s vote share to be 40.4 per cent, SP alliances 33 per cent, BSP’s 13 per cent and Congress’s 8 per cent. It is clear that the Congress has also been increasing its vote of share while the losers are chiefly BSP and BJP. When translated into seats the NDA was predicted to win seats in the range of only 212-224. It has made PM Modi and his team super active during the whole month of December.

ABP-CVoter Survey of November had predicted NDA’s seats to be in the range of 213-217 seats, followed by SP and allies in the range of 152-160 seats and BSP 16-20 seats. At that time Congress was not predicted to have been gaining, as it has been gaining in terms of vote share in the last two months.

One month earlier in the first week of October, the ABP-CVoter had predicted NDA to have losing only 0.1 per cent of vote share by gaining 41.3 per cent as against 41.4 per cent gained in 2017 assembly election. It means, between the first week of October and the last week of December, according to the surveys, NDA is losing about 3 per cent of votes share which is considered to be a steep fall in its political fortune. At that time SP was expected to witness a great jump to 32.4 per cent of votes which was more than 10 per cent gain compared to 2017. Translated into seats, NDA was predicted to win in the range of 241-249 seats and SP between 130-138 seats.

It was also a great fall from the results of the survey conducted just one month before in September by the same organization. The survey had predicted 263 seats for NDA, 113 seats for SP alliance, 14 seats for BSP and 5 seats for INC. For BJP it had predicted seats in the range of 259-267 and for SP in the range of 109-117. The loss of 62 seats for NDA was predicted despite their predicted gain of 0.4 per cent gain in their vote share to 41.8 per cent. SP alliances share of votes was predicted 30.2 per cent.

Thus, the surveys since September 2021, have been recording steep fall in predicted vote share and seats for BJP and NDA on the one hand and spectacular rise for the Samajwadi Party on the other. If the trend continues further, Uttar Pradesh is well set for a neck and neck fight between the BJP and SP, which can bring surprising results. (IPA Service)