Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity has soared over the past five months as the country prepares for general elections, an India Today TV survey has found.



Congress president Rahul Gandhi still has a lot of catching up to do on the overall voter preference charts for the next PM, according to the poll conducted by Axis-My-India for India Today's Political Stock Exchange (PSE).



That said, the 48-year-old opposition leader is more popular than the Prime Minister among Scheduled Castes (SC) and Muslim communities, the PSE suggests.



OVERALL PREFERENCE



Fifty-two per cent of the respondents prefer Narendra Modi and 33 per cent Gandhi in March as the next PM. In January, the Modi-Gandhi preference ratio stood at 48:35 compared to 46:32 in October 2018, the data has shown.

Image: India Today TV



Public satisfaction with the Modi government has also risen from 44 per cent in October, 43 per cent in January to 48 per cent in March.



Thirty per cent of the respondents have been found to be dissatisfied in the latest PSE poll, down from 32 per cent in January. In October 2018, the dissatisfaction levels were recorded at 30 per cent.



CASTE, AGE-WISE PREFERENCES



PM Modi enjoys overwhelming support from the OBCs -- 67 per cent, up from 55 per cent in January. His general-category base has grown to 72 per cent in March from 55 per cent in January, according to the PSE findings.

Image: India Today TV



Gandhi scores better than the PM among Muslims -- 61 per cent in March, up from 57 per cent in January. Forty-four per cent of the SCs backed him in March from 34 per cent a couple of months ago.



The Congress leader's latest support-base among the OBCs stands at 20 per cent and 15 per among general categories, the data showed.

Image: India Today TV

Forty-four per cent of ST voters back Modi and 40 per cent Gandhi in March, according to the PSE data.



The PM is found to be a favourite across all age groups -- 51 per cent in the 18-25 bracket to 52 per cent in the 61-plus lot.



The Congress president is preferred by 35 per cent of the 18-25 voters and 33 per cent of senior citizens, the survey showed.



GENDER-WISE VOTE SHARE



Modi surpasses Gandhi in the gender-wise vote share, the PSE showed. The PM is backed by 53 per cent of male respondents and 51 per cent of woman voters, according to the data.

Image: India Today TV

Image: India Today TV

The Congress president is supported by 32 per cent of male and 35 per cent of woman voters, the PSE suggested.



MAJOR ISSUES



Unemployment tops the list of the most important issues for Indians, the PSE found.



Thirty-six per cent of the respondents regard joblessness as paramount followed by terrorism at 23 per cent and farm distress at 22 per cent, the data showed.

Image: India Today TV



Twelve per cent rated corruption and seven per cent price rise as the key issues.



According to data released by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) recently, the country's unemployment rate rose to 7.2 percent in February 2019, the highest since September 2016, and up from 5.9 percent in February 2018.



METHODOLOGY



The survey was conducted via telephone interview across 540 parliamentary constituencies in February-March 2019, with a sample size of 134,682.