Vajpayee still favourite as PM, says survey

New Delhi, Aug 25 (UNI) Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is still the best choice for the Prime Minister in preference to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and present incumdent Manmohan Singh.

The India Today-AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG survey reveals that as many as 24 per cent of the respondents rated Mr Vajpayee as the best Prime Minister, followed by 17 per cent favouring Ms Gandhi and 15 per cent voting for Dr Singh for the post.

According to the survey publlished in the latest issue of India Today, 56 per cent of the respondents felt that Ms Gandhi was more powerful than Dr Singh while 25 per cent felt it was the other way round.

The survey reveals that as many as 35 per cent of the respondents felt that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's performance was good while 40 per cent of them rated him as average.

A majority of 55 per cent of the respondents felt that the UPA Government would last its full five year term while in a poll conducted six months ago, only 36 per cent had expressed this opinion.

As many as 39 per cent of the people in the survey were of the view that they would vote for Congress-led coalition, followed by 33.6 per cent for the BJP and its allies.

According to survey projections, Congress-led coalition is likely to win 252 to 261 seats if the Lok Sabha elections are held now.This marks a gain of about 20 seats from the opinion poll conducted six months ago.

The BJP on the other hand comes a close second in the opinion poll as a party which can solve people's problems and also in terms of its concern for the poor. The BJP, the respondents felt, could win only 152 to 161 seats. The party, however, could have won 170 to 180 seats had the elections been held in January 2006, according to the survey.

The higher rating for the Congress-led UPA alliance has been attributed to the failure of the BJP-led NDA to reorganise and consolidate itself in the opinion poll.

The poll covered 14,351 people of the various age groups in 19 states.

The UPA Government's performance was rated as good by as many as 30 per cent of the respondents while 42 per cent felt it was average. Only 10 per cent of the people considered the performance as poor.

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