The keenly watched Gujarat Assembly polls are headed for a photo finish as per the third and the final round of tracker poll conducted by Lokniti-CSDS-ABP News, which claims that both Congress and BJP will get 43% of the votes.
The report released on Monday evening, also reveals that the BJP’s vote share has dropped by 16 percentage points in just four months.
A similar survey in August had pegged the party’s vote-share at 59%. This was down to 43% by the last week of November.
More spectacular is the way the Congress, which has been in opposition for the last 22 years, has turned its fortunes around.
In August, as per the survey, the Congress had only 29% of the vote-share. This has grown by 14 percentage points in the four months since, with the party now neck-and-neck with the BJP.
Significantly, the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has dipped by 18 points from 82% in August to 64% in November.
And Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s popularity has risen by eight percentage points, from 40% in August to 57% in the latest survey.
The dip in the BJP’s lead can be partly attributed to anger among traders.
As per the survey, in October the BJP had a lead of four points among traders; however, the latest survey shows this has been nearly reversed, with the Congress now getting 43% votes among the trading community, as opposed to the BJP at 40%.
