Rajasthan polls: C-Voter gives Congress clear advantage over 'disjointed' BJP ahead of 7 December election

Editor’s Note: The following report is based on a continuous mood of voters survey conducted by C-Voter once a week since August through telephonic interviews. The survey was not commissioned by Firstpost. According to data released by pollster C-Voter, the Congress has a clear advantage in the upcoming Rajasthan Assembly election on 7 December, with Sachin Pilot enjoying a favourable rating compared to incumbent Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje of the BJP. The Congress’ projected lead in the vote share over the BJP—47.9 to 39.7 percent—easily exceeds the margin of error, thereby reducing the likelihood of a verdict against the run of play in the contest for 200 Assembly seats, as per analysis done by C-Voter for ABP News and Republic TV. [caption id=“attachment_5244721” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Congress leader Sachin Pilot. AFP[/caption] As the BJP’s fortunes have experienced a late surge between August and November 2018, the projected vote share gap between the Congress and BJP has reduced from 14 percent in August to eight percent. Taking into account the fact that the distribution of tickets has ended and last minute micro-management is in place, vote share trends may not differ substantially from here on, according to C-Voter. A disjointed BJP is unlikely to whittle down a Congress lead of 8 percent in the projected vote share, according to the pollster.  Congress is leading comfortably in the projected vote share in all five of Rajasthan’s regions as per the C-Voter data. Congress is dominating the BJP comfortably in Dhundhar and Harouti, and has less than five percent lead in projected vote share only in Marwad and Mewar. This is indicative of a uniform anti-incumbency mood across the state with no pocket of BJP influence shining through in the polls, according to the pollster. The C-Voter poll predicted that the Congress will net 145 seats and the BJP will win only 55 seats in the 2018 Assembly election. In 2013,  the Congress won a mere 21 seats and the BJP won a whopping 163 seats. Leadership advantage with Congress: Congress’ Sachin Pilot garnered 38.7 percent of votes from those polled and emerged by far the most popular candidate for the post of chief minister. Incumbent Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje of the BJP is a distant second with 22.7 percent respondents saying she would be the best candidate, followed closely by Congress’ Ashok Gehlot, who got the nod from 20.5 percent of respondents. When respondents were specifically asked to choose between Pilot and Raje, Pilot emerged as most voters’ preferred candidate: 50.6 percent of respondents picked Pilot, while only 31.9 percent picked Raje. Conclusions: C-Voter concluded that the Rajasthan Congress seems to be managing its affairs well by presenting a united face, that the BJP incumbent chief minister and the state government seem equally unpopular, that the BJP isn’t in the hunt in any of Rajasthan’s regions, that the gap in the projected vote share between BJP and Congress is too wide to be bridged by a late surge and that ticket distribution and micro-management have not been impacted much by projections. Other pollsters’ predictions: The CNX poll gives the BJP a projected 43.5 percent vote share and the Congress a 40.3 percent vote share.  The CSDS poll gave the Congress a projected 45 percent vote share and the BJP a 41 percent vote share. The CFORE poll gave the Congress a 50 percent vote share and the BJP a 43 percent vote share. The CNX poll predicts the BJP will win  75 seats and the Congress will net 115 seats.  The CSDS poll predicts 110 seats for the Congress and 84 seats for the BJP. The CFORE poll estimates 130 seats for the Congress and 65 seats for the BJP.