Two time Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi looks all set for a landslide victory in the assembly election this December as per ABP News AC Nielsen opinion poll which suggests that the BJP strongman will get a 2/3 rd majority bagging 124 seats in the 184 seat assembly. 62% of the voters in Gujarat also want to see Modi to play a national role in 2014 Lok Sabha election.
Modi baiters – Keshubhai Patel of the newly formed Gujarat Parivartan Party and rebel BJP member Kannubhai Kalsaria – might not be able to make a significant dent against the Gujarat chief minister and will end up damaging the Congress party, dividing the anti-Modi votes the opinion poll says. Congress seats are likely to fall from 59 in 2007 to 51 this time. However, Congress party will maintain its 38 percent vote share, the poll says.
Although the BJP vote share could see a slight decline from 2007 when it was 49.12%, the opinion poll indicated that even with 47 percent vote share in 2012 assembly poll, a massive 62% of the urban voters want to see the Gujarat chief minister take on a larger national role in 2014 general election. The opinion poll indicated that 53 percent of the total Gujarat voters want Modi in Delhi leading the party for the Lok Sabha polls.
Gujrat however, sends only 26 seats to the Lok Sabha.
A renewed mandate for Modi with a third consecutive term will consolidate his position within the national party weakening the position of party President Nitin Gadkari who doesn’t see eye-to-eye with Gujarat chief minister. This would also lead to a clear division within the central leadership of BJP which is not keen on seeingGadkari getting a second term.
Although the Congress vote share will remain intact, the poll says, the number of seats won by the party might see a dip, thereby deflating the prospects of the party which is banking on strengthening itself in these polls. In fact, a desperate Congress is fielding several of its sitting MPs as candidates for these Assembly elections n order to combat Modi – if the results of these polls are accurate then the Congress's massive advantage in the Lok Sabha poll (it won 11 against the BJP’s 15) in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, could be lost.
Going by the Uttar Pradesh Assembly results example, the Congress under the baton of Congress scion Rahul Gandhi, could again come a cropper. This does not augur well for the party which is wary of the public perceiving these polls as a dress rehersal for the 2014 grand show.
Interestingly, former state chief minister Keshubhai Patel and Govardhan Zadaphia, former home minister, of Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP) who had set out to damage Modi in the election might end up damaging congress party. The newly formed political outfit is expected to win 3 seats with a vote share of 2 percent.
Among the regions, BJP is winning 39 seats in Saurashtra-Kutch out the 54 seats while Congress is getting only 11 seats. In central Gujarat, which has 40 seats, BJP is getting 20 while Congress will win 18. North Gujarat has 53 seats and the ABP News-Nielsen poll shows BJP winning 39 and the Congress getting 14. BJP is sweeping South Gujarat, winning 26 of the 35 seats there while Congress will get only 8.
As per the poll predictions, Arvind Kejriwal’s foray into politics seems not to have caught the imagination of many people, only 15 percent respondents agree that they would support Kejriwal and would vote against the party that he campaigns against. The opinion poll was conducted across 91 assembly constituencies between 16 to 29 October, 2012.