AAP will triumph in Delhi, say opinion polls

Opinion polls have buoyed expectations in the AAP camp in the midst of a charged campaign for the Delhi Assembly polls, scheduled for February 7.

In all the three polls published by media houses based on surveys conducted in the last week of January, the AAP surged ahead of the BJP, with its leader Arvind Kejriwal topping the popularity charts to occupy the Delhi Chief Minister’s office.

At 54 per cent rating, Kejriwal was 16 percentage points ahead in the ET-TNS poll as compared to the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi, who scored 38 per cent.

Similarly, in the Hindustan Times-C Fore survey, Kejriwal scored 46 per cent while Bedi lagged behind with 37 per cent ratings. The Congress’ Ajay Maken was a very distant third in all the surveys.

Another significant aspect of all these surveys is the surging vote share of the new party. In December 2013 Delhi Assembly elections, AAP had not been able to surpass the BJP’s number of seats or vote percentage despite having made a dream debut.

The BJP had secured 31 seats and 33.07 per cent vote share in that election. The AAP won 28 seats (29.49 per cent of the vote share). The Congress, which had been winning for the past three consecutive terms, came down to eight seats but still managed to secure 24.55 per cent of the vote share.

In the Lok Sabha, the BJP’s vote share went up to a whopping 46.63 per cent in Delhi and it won all the seven seats in the Capital. The AAP did not win any seat but its vote share went up to 33.8 per cent in the Lok Sabha. The Congress’ vote share went down to 15.22 per cent.

But in all the latest surveys, the AAP’s vote share is bigger than the BJP’s. In the HT-C Fore survey, the AAP gets 40 per cent vote share and 36-41 seats as compared to the BJP’s 37 per cent vote share and a seat tally of 27-32.

The ET-TNS poll gives the AAP a staggering 49 per cent vote share and 36-40 seats while the BJP gets 43.5 per cent of the votes.

The gradual loss in the Congress’ vote share — from the 2013 Assembly election to 2014 Lok Sabha election and now in the opinion polls — correlates with an increase in the AAP’s vote share.

From a largely middle class, anti-corruption movement, the AAP has been able to transform itself into a representative of the urban underclass and minority population in Delhi.

So, this is the first election in decades when the BJP will hope for the Congress to score better than it did in the Lok Sabha elections. “Our internal polls show that the Congress is doing better,” Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay told BusinessLine .

In this context, the BJP would hope for a high voter turnout of the magnitude experienced in the May 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Delhi recorded a high turnout of about 65.07 per cent then. The BJP swept all the seven seats in the Capital with very high voting in elite and middle-class localities as well.

The party fears that a low voter turnout in the upcoming elections will imply that the middle-class voter’s enthusiasm for Modi has waned.

The poor voters — inhabitants of slum clusters and minority clusters — are traditionally known to vote in large numbers. And this time, their main attraction is the AAP.