E-Paper
Performance: Sheila high, Khurana down
HT-CSDS survey shows that the electors in Delhi think that Congress government has performed much better than the previous BJP government.
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Results of the HT-CSDS Survey published in the Hindustan Times on Monday and Tuesday show the Congress is ahead of the BJP in the assembly election race, and Sheila Dikshit is ahead of Madan Lal Khurana as the people's choice for chief minister. The question is, why?
Data generated by the Survey suggests that in the voter’s mind, Delhi’s Congress government has performed better than the BJP government that preceded it. At the same time, the voter is unhappy with the BJP-led government at the Centre, and is possibly punishing the Delhi BJP for it.
State of happiness
Sixty-six per cent of respondents say they’re either “very satisfied” or at least “somewhat satisfied” with the Delhi government’s performance. In the HT-CSDS survey carried out before the 1998 elections, 45 per cent had said they were satisfied with the performance of the (then incumbent) BJP government.
What is important is that as much as 46 per cent of BJP voters are ‘somewhat satisfied’ with Delhi’s Congress government. This percentage is as high as the percentage of Congress voters who are ‘somewhat satisfied’ with the government. Again, the percentage of Congress voters who rate the present government positively is higher than the percentage of BJP voters who felt the same about the BJP government in 1998.
This government appears, in fact, to be more popular than any state government that went to assembly polls recently. Even in Gujarat, where Chief Minister Narendra Modi returned to power with a landslide victory in 2002, only 59 per cent of voters had indicated their satisfaction with the incumbent government, a good 7 per cent less than what Sheila Dikshit’s government in Delhi gets.
Despite the low negative ratings, it is not as if everyone is happy with the Congress government, however. The highest levels of dissatisfaction are among the older and the very poor voters. In both categories, 27 per cent rate the Congress negatively.
The Congress government gets the highest proportion of positive ratings from the educated voters — a whopping 71 per cent say they are happy. Among young voters, 44 per cent say the present government is better than the preceding BJP government; only 23 per cent rank the latter higher.
