By IANS,
New Delhi : India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) will get only 33 percent of votes if Lok Sabha elections were to be held now, according to a voter survey released Friday.
The survey across 54 Lok Sabha constituencies carried out by CVoter agency for The Week magazine July 9 and 10 gives the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) a close 32 percent of votes.
Simultaneously, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Left Front would bag six percent of votes each and the Third Front nine percent. Other political forces would gather 14 percent.
The survey covered a sample of 604 voters, according to a spokesman for the Week magazine. The Week will hit the stands Saturday.
According to the findings, the 33 percent votes for the Congress-led UPA works out to 183-193 seats in the 545-seat Lok Sabha compared to 179-189 of the NDA.
The BSP could get 46 to 56, the Left 37 to 47 and the Third Front 52 to 62 seats. Others could win 16 to 26 seats.
A total of 44 percent said they were satisfied with the performance of the Manmohan Singh government (in contrast to 38 percent who said ‘no’). But only nine percent said Manmohan Singh would be the best prime minister.
BJP’s L.K. Advani topped the list of “best prime minister” with 17 percent voting in his favour, followed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi (15 percent), her son and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi (12) and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (11).
The India-US nuclear deal may have sparked a political crisis but 58 percent of voters said the issue of price rise was more important than the nuclear deal.
Fifty-three percent listed corruption as their most pressing concern, followed by unemployment (45 percent), rising prices (30) and poverty (29 percent).
Voters were asked if the Manmohan Singh government was better than the previous Vajpayee government? Twenty-six percent answered ‘yes’, 25 percent said ‘poor’ while 49 percent said they were alike.
Despite the low markings for UPA, 42 percent said the nuclear deal was “pro-India”. Only 23 percent felt it was “anti-India”. More than 50 percent said the deal was needed to fulfil India’s energy needs.
Again, 53 percent felt the reason for the opposition to the nuclear deal was political. Only 31 percent felt that the Left was right in withdrawing support to the UPA government over it. Forty percent felt otherwise.