NEW DELHI/PANJIM: The Congress has literally emerged from the wilderness and can lay claim to being a direct challenger of the BJP, according the India Today-Axis opinion poll across all 40 constituencies released on Friday.
The Aam Aadmi Party, which has littered the State with banners from an earlier supposed survey stating that it will get 35% of the vote share, comes a distant third in the India Today-Axis poll with a seat range projection of 1-3 and 16% of the vote share. At the very least, it is now time to get those banners off and replace them with new ones, showing where it stands with the latest opinion poll, a vote share of 16% not 35%.
The India Today-Axis opinion poll, conducted across all constituencies in poll bound states in early 2017, did so in Goa to. While the sample size of 2015, sampled between September 5 and October 5, isn’t such a big number, the dipstick was done in all 40 seats.
The BJP-MGP combine leads with 38% of the vote share and a projection of 17-21 seats. The Congress is second with 34% vote share and a surprisingly higher number of seats than popular expectation, between 13-17 seats. Therefore, dependent on the percentage of voting, if the Congress inches up and the BJP inches down, Goa could actually see an unbelievable neck and neck fight, according to this India Today-Axis opinion poll.
The Aam Aadmi Party, facing a barrage of investigations, including those of alleged corruption in Delhi against its officials and senior ministers, has received a projected vote share of 16% and a mere 1-3 seat range. But now it’s clear that even as it gets 16%, which reflects certain inroads AAP has indeed made, the beneficiary is the BJP. AAP’s presence has surely put a check on the Congress, if these poll figures are anything to go by and the vote split has boosted BJP’s seat figure.
AAP leader Dr Oscar Rebello, who appeared on the India Today show to analyse the poll, was almost dismissive of these findings saying that these are early days. He said that polls had given the AAP no chances before the Delhi elections too. However, when a recent Kautilya survey (details of which are completely hazy) gave AAP a 35% vote share, the party made banners of the findings and installed them on polls, trees and hoardings.
In another interesting finding, more respondents have picked Laxmikant Parsekar as their CM choice (31%) over Manohar Parrikar (19%) with Digambar Kamat (who was offered as a pick since he was the previous Congress CM), being favoured by 14%.
With no absolute winner, a game of alliances and post poll coalition forming is on the cards. It assumes great significance that “others” (mainly independents) have got 12% vote share (less than AAP) but have got 3-5 seats projected. In a tight race, a kingmaker could emerge from the “others” lot.
