Not only will Congress increase its seat tally, it will also improve its vote share by 9 percentage points, says survey conducted by C-fore.
Bengaluru: An ‘independent’ pre-poll survey released by the Congress in Karnataka Monday said that the party will hold on to the state in the assembly elections due by May.
Not only will the Congress increase its seat tally, it will also improve its vote share by 9 per cent, according to C-fore, a Delhi-based research firm which conducted the survey. It claims the Congress party will win 128 seats, up from the 122 it has at present.
The survey also shows that chief minister Siddaramaiah is ahead of the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate B.S. Yeddyurappa in terms of the preferred chief minister, with 45 per cent of the respondents preferring Siddaramaiah against 26 per cent for Yeddyurappa. Janata Dal (S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy was a distant third at 13 per cent.
The survey said that the vote share of the Congress will jump to 46 per cent, a 9 point increase. C-fore said that the BJP is likely to get a vote share of 31 per cent, an increase of 11 points, and forecast it to win 70 seats. The JD (S) is forecast to win 27 seats with a 16 per cent share of the votes.
C-fore said the survey was conducted between 1 and 25 March and 22,357 voters were interviewed across 154 assembly constituencies, covering all districts in the state.
It said the Congress stands to gain because of its welfare schemes such as Anna Bhagya, Krishibhagya, Shaadi Bhagya, among others.
Premchand Palety, chief executive officer of C-Fore, told ThePrint that the firm had independently conducted the survey. “See we are a professional survey agency. We work with politicians belonging to all parties in Karnataka. The question should be about authenticity of the survey,” he said.
“We are open to audit by anyone. All the filled survey forms are in our office for anyone to audit. This survey is not commissioned by anyone,” Palety added.
The survey said the BJP has gained considerably in central Karnataka and will put up a tough fight in coastal and Bombay-Karnataka region. But what may help the BJP will be its capability to split Dalit and Muslim votes in its favour, the survey indicates.
The survey says that two factors could help the BJP — a big chunk of Dalit voters being lured by the Hindutva agenda; and Dalits and Muslims backing the JD(S).