New Delhi: An opinion poll conducted by RSS mouthpiece Organiser ahead of Lok Sabha elections has said that development and governance were top issues before voters.
The survey, published in the latest issue of the weekly, said the BJP’s Prime Ministerial nominee Narendra Modi is the top choice of voters for the PM’s post except in south India where Rahul Gandhi enjoys an edge.
Corruption, strangely, did not figure among the top five topics among voters though it was one of the issues among the top ten. The opinion poll, however, does not mention Ram Temple.
The survey, conducted by the Organiser and Lok Saarthi Foundation in 380 parliamentary constituencies across all states in central, northern, western, eastern and southern India, said that the majority of 1.14 lakh sampled electors listed lack of employment and basic amenities such as electricity, hospitals, roads and drinking water, as their primary concerns.
The survey was conducted between the first week of January and the first week of March to guage the “mood of the voters” on issues of concern to them and preferred leadership.
The opinion poll says that Mr Modi is the top choice for PM’s job by 48 per cent of the voters in north India followed by 27 per cent who back Rahul Gandhi. Arvind Kejriwal however, trails far behind, it said.
According to the survey, in south India, however, the poll found that Mr Gandhi was ahead of Mr Modi in popularity with 35.8 per cent voters backing him for PM’s job as against 33.3 per cent who supported Mr Modi. In all the other four regions, the poll placed Mr Modi ahead of the Congress vice-president.
The survey admitted an important shift in voters’ preference to issues of development and governance.
RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav said the survey was not conducted by RSS but the Organiser, a weekly run by Swayamsevaks and RSS sympathisers.
“RSS does not and never conducts any surveys at the time of elections. This survey is done by Organiser. To term and project it as an RSS survey is not correct,” Mr Madhav said.
Reacting to the survey, BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said, “Mr Modi, BJP and NDA will win the Lok Sabha polls irrespective of whether the survey predicts it or not.” Congress leader Jayanthi Natarajan said, “RSS and BJP are always known to change their stand according to political compulsion. This being poll time, perhaps they change their stand to appeal in a better way, perhaps they themselves realise their divisive agenda won’t be fruitful.”
