NEW DELHI: With Prime Minister

completing four years in office today, his government received a massive thumbs up in a mega ‘Pulse of the Nation’ online poll conducted by the Times Group, with almost two-third (71.9%) of 8,44, 646 respondents who took the survey saying they will vote for Narendra Modi as PM candidate if general elections were held today. With less than a year to go for the next Lok Sabha elections, 73.3% of respondents said that a Modi-led government was the most-likely possibility when the elections are held.

While Narendra Modi remains the most popular choice for the Prime Minister if Lok Sabha elections were to be held today, 16.1% per cent of respondents said that their vote for prime minister will go to a candidate other than Modi or Rahul Gandhi. Interestingly, the Congress president Rahul Gandhi, with 11.93 per cent votes, was the third most favoured choice.

The poll was conducted online between May 23-25 in 9 languages across 9 media properties of the Times Group. The results were concealed from respondents during the three days of online polling to negate any motivated voting.

When asked to rate four years of the Modi government, over two-third of respondents rated its track record as good or very good. Out of this, 'very good' accounted for 47.4% and 'good' for 20.6%. About 11.38% termed it as average, while 20.55% found it to be poor.

The survey asked respondents to rate the biggest successes as well as failures of the Modi government. On successes: 33.42% respondents rated implementation of the GST as their top choice, followed by demonetisation (21.9%), surgical strikes on Pakistan (19.89%) and Jan Dhan Yojana (9.7%).

Lack of adequate employment-generation emerged as the biggest failure, with 28.3% of respondents saying it was the biggest problem for Modi government. However, when questioned on the government’s efforts at reducing unemployment, 58.4% people said that they were either satisfied or termed it as very good. Out of these, 37.2% fell in the satisfied category and 21.2% were those who thought it was 'very good'. Thirty six per cent respondents gave the government a ‘poor’ rating on this issue. The government’s Kashmir policy was also considered a failure by 14.28% of respondents. Opinion on demonetisation was sharply divided. While, over one-fifth of respondents also rated it as a policy success, another 22.2% considered it the NDA government’s single biggest failure.

On the question of minorities, a majority of respondents (59.41%) said they did not think minority groups felt insecure under the NDA government. However, 30.01% said minorities do feel insecure while10.58% said they couldn’t decide on this question.

PM Modi's proactive fronting of India’s foreign policy received a massive thumbs-up with over 80 percent of the voters terming it 'very good' (62.63%) or 'good'(17.43%).

With several opposition parties having come together after the Karnataka verdict for a united front in the 2019 general election, 57.1% of voters said a combined non-BJP alliance will not be effective against BJP in the next Lok Sabha poll. However, 28.96% respondents said such a front will be an effective challenger, while another 13.92% said they couldn’t decide.

On the question of the most likely political scenario after the 2019 general election, 73.36% respondents predicted a Modi-led government coming back to power, 16.04% thought it would be a Third Front government, while only 10.59% predicted a Rahul Gandhi-led government.

As many as 55% voters believe that their life has improved since BJP-led NDA government came to power after scoring a thumping victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. However, 33.92% voters were not satisfied and responded in the negative.