Findings of survey to guide Congress’ 2019 poll strategy

Survey by party shows that it could win 5 of 7 parliamentary seats in Delhi

Having already ruled out an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Delhi Congress said on Tuesday it has another reason not to seek a tie-up. A door-to-door survey conducted by the party predicts that it will win five out of seven Parliamentary seats in 2019, while showing a dip in the AAP’s vote share.

Amid rumours of a possible Congress and AAP alliance, Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken last week had said there was “no question” of such a tie-up for the Lok Sabha polls.

Now, a recent survey conducted by the Delhi Congress’ in-house research team, led by former members of Swaraj India leader Yogendra Yadav’s team, has found that Delhiites were more satisfied with the 15-year rule of Sheila Dikshit than the three years’ of the Arvind Kejriwal-led government.

‘In the right direction’

“Our workers and leaders did not want an alliance with the AAP. The survey shows that Congress is going in the right direction and that if we have an internal alliance [with leaders like Ms. Dikshit], then we do not need an external one,” Mr. Maken said on Tuesday, reacting to the findings.

Covering 1,276 respondents from 24 out of 70 Assembly constituencies picked at random, the survey was carried out from April 11 to 28, said one of the researchers, Vikash Kumar Jha.

He said the Assembly constituencies, the booth numbers and voter ID numbers of respondents were chosen in an “unbiased way” using the “systematic random sampling” method.

The survey found that 42.5% of the respondents were satisfied and 7.5% were fully satisfied with the AAP government.

In comparison, 30.6% and 7.8% were satisfied and fully satisfied respectively with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

The survey report said 54% and 15.4% of the respondents were satisfied and fully satisfied respectively with Ms. Dikshit’s rule.

Asked who they would vote for if the Lok Sabha elections were held ‘tomorrow’, 41.2% of the respondents said the Congress, 27.4% said the BJP and 16.8% said the AAP. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress lost all seven seats to the BJP.

Focus points

The survey also said that the Congress would get the highest vote share in five of the seven seats if elections were held now.

The survey also revealed that the BJP and the AAP would get the highest vote share in North-East Delhi and South Delhi respectively, Mr. Maken said the findings would help the Congress make “course corrections”.

“We will be conducting regular surveys and these will help us while formulating strategies. For instance, the survey shows Mr. Modi is the most popular leader for those under 25 years. We will be focusing on the issues affecting the youth more,” said Mr. Maken.

Though the Congress’ survey said 39.8% of the total respondents wanted party president Rahul Gandhi to be the next Prime Minister over 35.3% for Mr. Modi, the latter was the choice for 49.1% of those under 25 years, as opposed to 28.4% for the former.