CVoter-ABP Poll: BJP To Win In UP, But Seats And Vote Share Will Both Go Down Drastically
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-11-13 14:32:32
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
Even as Amit Shah was exhorting state BJP leaders in UP to ensure that the party returns to power with more than 300 seats, the first of the opinion polls (by CVoter-ABP) for the 5 states slated to go to the polls early next year came out and it has predicted that it is going to be very tough for the party to reach that target. According to the results of the poll, while the BJP is not going to lose, it is going to see a huge loss of both seats and vote share. The Samajvadi Party (SP) is expected to gain at the BJP's expense.
Although it is too early now to predict what will happen in the state elections, the survey (held in the first week of November) obviously captures the present disenchantment of the electorate with the Yogi Adityanath administration. But since Yogi is not a chief minister who can be replaced (like the ones in Gujarat and Uttarakhand) as he is too high in the party hierarchy, there is no talk of anti-incumbency in UP.
Instead, the party is likely to project Yogi as the corruption-free iron man who has tamed the mafia and made UP crime-free. As the Prime Minister and the Home Minister had repeatedly praised his handling of the Covid situation in the state that is also going to be highlighted. In other words, despite the opinion poll results which show his waning popularity, the BJP is going to go full steam ahead with Yogi Adityanath in command.
Of course elections in UP are won more by getting the caste arithmetic right and candidate selection, it remains to be seen whether the Amit Shah magic which brought together a union of upper caste and backward caste votes in both 2017 and 2019 for the BJP, works this time too. But according to the CVoter-ABP poll, the SP is likely to win back support from its vote bank this time, although it will not be enough for it to trump the BJP. The survey says that the BJP is likely to win 217 seats with 41 percent vote share while the SP is likely to win 156 seats with 31% vote share. This is likely to cause deep creases on some foreheads in the BJP.
