Post poll survey – BJP to open account ; Predicts 2 seats, vote share will rise to 10%

Surveys differ on Kerala poll outcome
VR Jayaraj | Kochi – Daily Pioneer

Different post-poll surveys differed sharply on the possible outcome of the April 13 election to the 13th Kerala Assembly but one of them predicted that the BJP was likely to “open account” in the State Legislature. While three surveys predicted a clear win for the Congress-led Opposition UDF, one concluded that the CPI(M)-headed LDF might manage to continue in power.

While Star News and Headlines Today (survey done jointly with ORG) predicted clear victory for the UDF with 88 seats and 85-to-92 seats respectively in the 140-member House, the Asianet News – C fore post-poll survey said the UDF might bag between 72 and 82 seats. It also predicted that the BJP might win up to two seats.

However, the post-poll survey done by Centre for Study of Development Societies (CSDS) for TV channels Manorama News and CNN-IBN and The Week weekly said that the election might have been a neck-and neck race in which the LDF was likely to emerge as the winner by bagging up to 77 seats. But it added that the Left could as well lose by managing to get only 69 seats.

The CSDS survey also said that even the UDF might come back to power after a gap of five years by winning up to 71 seats, just one seat above the half-way mark of 70 seats but it added that the UDF tally could dip to as low as 63 seats. Congress’s MI Shanavas MP fumed at the suggestion saying, “This is not a scientific study but merely a creation of imagination.”

After analyzing the post-poll projections provided by the lower committees, the State CPI(M) leadership had come to the conclusion that the LDF might retain power by winning up to 78 seats. The Congress had been expecting the UDF to grab power from the Left by winning between 82 and 90 seats.

Though the Asianet News-C fore and CSDS surveys differed in the predictions on the final outcome, both agreed that the winning front would have just one-percent lead over the other. According to the former, the UDF could get a vote share of 44 percent and the LDF 43 percent, CSDS expected the LDF vote-share to be 45 percent while that of the UDF might be 44 percent.

However, the point on which both the surveys were in total agreement was that octogenarian Marxist VS Achuthanandan, present Chief Minister, was the man who got the support of majority of voters to head the next government. Likewise, they also agreed in the observation that there was no big anti-incumbency factor at work in the election.

The CSDS survey observed that 38 percent of the voters considered Achuthanandan as the best choice for the post of Chief Minister and that only 25 percent wanted Congress’s Opposition leader Oommen Chandy to head the next government. As per the Asianet News-C fore survey, Achuthanandan’s popularity was at 40 percent while that of Chandy stood at 37 percent.

Both these surveys also agreed on the point that the vote-share of the BJP might register an encouraging growth for that party. While the Asianet News-C-fore survey said the BJP’s vote share could grow from to ten percent from the 2006 level of 4.75 percent, the CSDS survey said this growth might be by just 1.25 percent to six percent.

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