ABP News-AC Nielsen survey: UPA loses sheen; BJP inches ahead

After eight years in power, the Congress-led coalition's pull seems to be diminishing. The result of the ABP News-Nielsen survey conducted on the eve of the UPA-II third anniversary has revealed this. The survey, conducted across 28 cities across the country in April-May 2012, reveals that the BJP would garner 28% of the votes if Lok Sabha elections are held now, while the Congress would manage only 20%. In fact, the BJP has turned out to be the most favoured party. In an interesting revelation, only 69% of those who voted for Congress during 2009 Lok Sabha elections are still intending to vote for it if Lok Sabha elections are held now. 31% are moving away from it and 12% of these respondents now intend to vote for the BJP. Whereas for BJP, 84% will stick with the party and only 2% are switching away from it to Congress. In 2009 elections, 28% of these respondents voted for Congress, while 27% voted for the BJP. But for the BJP, the dip of 8% in the Congress vote share is not a complete gain. The BJP is gaining only a marginal 1%. The remaining 7% dip in Congress vote share among these respondents is gain for regional parties. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, Congress had won 207 seats while BJP had got 116 seats. While 32% believed the government's performance was good or very good, a sizable 35% rated the performance as average. Significant 21% respondents said it was poor while 11% rated the performance as very poor. The performance of UPA government has been rated slightly below average with a mean score 2.95, which is lower than the mean score of 3.22 last year.