India Today projects Rahul Gandhi as Top Contender to Modi
From the Editor’s Desk: Even as we are still in the first leg of 2016 and April-May 2019 is far away, leading magazine India Today has come up with a cover page story on “resurgent” Rahul Gandhi, saying he has emerged as the leader of substance to take on Modi. Even his party leaders got confused!!!
The ‘Mood of The Nation’ poll says people prefer Priyanka as the Congress President instead of Rahul Gandhi, but the survey cleverly omitted the younger sister’s name from the PM contenders’ list to give an edge to Rahul Gandhi. It was a careful plan to create a buzz in favour of Rahul, but not sure whether it would really work or not.
As per the ‘Mood of the Nation’ poll on India Today TV, Rahul has emerged as a strong contender to PM Modi by increasing his vote share to 22% from 8% a few months ago. Modi too increased his share to 40%, but the gain is less as compared to Rahul. So, message is loud and clear from India Today – There is no leadership crisis in India. Rahul is ready to be installed as the PM in 2019… Is it so easy???
As expected, the survey predicted 286 seats for BJP-led NDA, down from 340 seats they won in 2014. On the other hand, Congress-led UPA is projected to win 110 seats, up from 86 seats they won in last general elections. Others too gained, mainly Samajwadi Party, JD(U) and BSP. In total, other parties would win 147 seats. However, NDA’s vote share will remain intact.
In the PM’s race, Modi is leading with 40% of vote share, followed by Rahul Gandhi (22%), Sonia Gandhi (11%) and Arvind Kejriwal (4%). Had Priyanka been included in the survey, it would be a different picture altogether.
To maintain a balance and not to upset the Modi brigade, the survey claimed that 58% of people term PM Modi’s performance as GOOD, while 30% say it has been AVERAGE. 9% people term it as POOR. Still, he gets only 40% in the PM’s race. Either people of India are fools or India Today is too smart!
Well, there is a survey among the Hindus and Muslims too. After all, religion plays a key role in India when it comes to appeasement politics. Narendra Modi is the most preferred candidate among the Hindus with 44% vote share, while Rahul Gandhi gets 20% of total votes. But, when it comes to Muslims, Rahul pips Modi by 38% to 14% of total votes.
When it comes to Narendra Modi’s top challengers in 2019, Rahul leads the race with 32%, followed by mom Sonia Gandhi (15%), Arvind Kejriwal (10%) and Nitish Kumar (8%). What India Today failed to show us, was Priyanka’s popularity graph. She is definitely more popular than Rahul, but was ignored by India Today, which did the same what Sonia did.
The survey called Nitish Kumar and Arvind Kejriwal as the most popular CMs in India. Fair enough! In the ‘Best Ever PMs’ list, Indira Gandhi leads the race with 26%, followed by AB Vajpayee (16%), Narendra Modi (14%) and Jawaharlal Nehru (12%). Modi fans argue that their boss has ruled for just 20 months, while others have ruled India for longer period. They ask us to wait for the completion of his term and then see the results.
Well, whatever happens to Modi’s popularity graph, India Today successfully imposed Rahul Gandhi on us, and the move came at a time when we expected JNU on the cover page. But, they prefer Rahul! It’s just a beginning!!!