Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the nation from the historic Red Fort on Independence Day (REUTERS/Adnan Abidi) Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the nation from the historic Red Fort on Independence Day (REUTERS/Adnan Abidi)

Several controversies may have dogged the first two years of the present NDA government, but Narendra Modi would still be the favourite to be the country’s prime minister if elections were held now, a survey said.

The ‘Mood of the Nation’ poll conducted by India Today in collaboration with Karvy Insights showed PM Modi having a support of 50 per cent among the respondents. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi lagged far behind with 13 percent vote, followed by Sonia Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal. The survey indicates that anti-incumbency sentiments against the government so far are not big enough to overpower PM Modi’s efforts to come back to power.

At the same time, the survey said the NDA will get 304 seats in the Lok Sabha in elections held now compared to 336 seats the coalition got in 2014. The seat count has certainly dropped, but leaders of the NDA can rejoice that people want them to come back to power.

In popularity ratings for chief ministers nationwide, Arvind Kejriwal and Nitish Kumar are tied for the top spot with 14% vote each. While Mamata Banerjee comes second, Shivraj Singh Chouhan is on the third spot.

But when respondents were queried about the chief minister in their own state, Kejriwal’s popularity drops. In Delhi, his popularity is shown to decline. K Chandrasekhar Rao in Telangana, Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh are voted positively in their home states. But its Nitish Kumar who heads the CMs rankings with massive 87 per cent popularity in Bihar.

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When people were asked about who they thought was the best PM ever, they overwhelmingly said the name of Indira Gandhi. Atal Behari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi came in second and third spots respectively.

The survey was carried out across 97 parliamentary constituencies in 19 states. More than 12,000 interviews were conducted and the fieldwork was done between July 15-27.

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