Elections 2012: Clear majority for Samajwadi Party in UP

Mangaloretoday/ CNN-IBN

New Delhi, March 3: In the CNN-IBN-The Week post-poll survey, it’s a Samajwadi Party (SP) wave in Uttar Pradesh. In what is most likely to be one of the biggest electoral victories in UP in the last 20 years, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s SP is bound to surprise by garnering an impressive 34 per cent of the votes in the Assembly elections 2012. The CNN-IBN-The Week post-poll survey conducted by CSDS also says that a vote-share of 34 per cent for the SP means the party is ahead of its rivals by an unprecedented 10 per cent of the total votes polled in UP.

In the four-cornered battle for UP, other parties are far behind the Samajwadi Party in terms of vote share. The survey says BSP may have a vote share of 24 per cent as opposed to 30 per cent in 2007, BJP 14 per cent as opposed to 17 in 2007 and Congress finishing at the fourth position with an estimated 12 per cent vote share compared to 13 per cent in 2007.

Interestingly, Rahul Gandhi, despite the Congress’ bad performance in the survey, remains a favourite of the voters. 38 per cent of the voters surveyed said they have more faith in Rahul, followed by 21 per cent for Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son, Akhilesh Yadav. Mulayam was also the top choice for the Chief Minister’s post with 34 per cent of the voters opting for the SP chief, as opposed to Mayawati (22 per cent) and Rahul Gandhi (8 per cent). Despite the wave, only 2 per cent of the voters wanted Akhilesh as the CM of the state.





However, senior SP leader Shahid Siddiqui told CNN-IBN that Akhilesh Yadav can also be the party’s choice for the Chief Minister’s post.

UP has always been the most watched assembly election in India. The CSDS poll, conducted in 83 constituencies across the state, also reveals that the Mayawati-led BSP government was unpopular with almost half of the electorate. 50 per cent of the voters said the BSP should not get another chance, while only 26 per cent favoured a return of Mayawati as the Chief Minister.

UP is a large state with four important regions: The SP wave, mostly being credited to Mulayam’s son Akhilesh Yadav, can be seen in all these regions with the party leading all its rivals in the four regions: Poorvanchal (12 per cent), Awadh (9 per cent), Paschim Pradesh (6 per cent) and Bundelkhand (6 per cent). Except Bundelkhand where Congress is the second leading party, it’s the BSP in the other regions that is behind the Samajwadi Party.

Meanwhile, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, in an interview to CNN-IBN, said he was confident of the party getting more than 125 seats in the UP polls. He challenged the findings of the poll and said he would rather wait for March 6, the day of the counting of votes.

UP voted in the last phase of the seven-phase assembly elections on Saturday. The state this year witnessed a high percentage of polling, with Saturday’s polling at 62 per cent. The overall polling percentage in the state is 60.