With the Lok Sabha polls not very far away, the BJP in Chhattisgarh is in for some anti-incumbency as the Congress party is fast closing the gap with the ruling party. Not too long ago, Chief Minister Raman Singh had won his third stint in office but that is not helping the party on the ground. Raman Singh however won in December by a wafer-thin popular vote difference. [caption id=“attachment_1462793” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh. PTI[/caption] The Lokniti, CSDS-IBN-NES Election Tracker found that 44 percent of the respondents in March supported the BJP against 39 percent for the Congress. However, the story lies in the fact that the liking for BJP slipped by 6 percent from 50 percent in January. In comparison, Congress improved its position from 34 percent in January to 39 percent in March. The survey for March, which covered nine out of 11 parliamentary seats in the state, had a sample size of 529. The sample size in January was 542. Despite an impressive level of satisfaction with the state government at 70 percent, the Raman Singh government is struggling to cut down the rising Congress sentiment. Satisfaction with the state government was down from 79 percent in January. In contrast, support for the Congress-led Central government rose 16 percent from 21 percent to 37 percent. The indices clearly signal that anti-UPA government sentiment has weakened somewhat in Chhattisgarh in the last two months. In March, support for giving the UPA a third term reached 35 percent from January’s 29 percent. The negative perception for the UPA increased only by one percent from 38 to 39 percent during the same period. From the survey it is obvious that local issues are influencing voter perception in the state. For instance, 24 percent of the respondents blamed the state government against 12 percent pointing fingers at the Centre for Maoist violence. The claims of development that the BJP government made in the last 10 years were found to be inflated by 38 percent against 21 percent who considered the claims as genuine. Notwithstanding its rise of late, the Congress needs to introspect on its repeated electoral routs in the state. Among those surveyed, 24 percent felt that its defeats were mainly because of former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi’s unhappiness with the party. Other party leaders like Charandas Mahant, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi are all ranked well below Jogi as causes for the Congress’ woes. An improvement in the Congress position was visible among the backward classes, particularly among OBCs and Dalits, the survey revealed. Among Dalits, 51 percent are in support of the Congress while 47 percent preferred the BJP. In the OBC community, 42 percent gave the thumbs up to the Congress which is 6 percent behind BJP’s 48 percent. Among tribal voters, both the parties are running neck and neck with BJP at 43 percent and Congress at 42 percent respectively. However, the big difference occurs in the upper caste segment. The survey discovered that 35 percent in this category are in favour of BJP. The Congress got a paltry 17 percent from the upper castes.