Mood of the Nation: Modi's popularity rating drops

New Delhi, Aug 20: The biannual India Today Group-Karvy Insights Mood of the Nation (MOTN) opinion poll found that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity rating has dropped compared to a year-and-a-half ago. The PM enjoys 49 per cent in the fourth year of his term, but he is not as wildly popular as a year-and-a-half ago when his ratings stood at 65 per cent.

Also, the level of those satisfied with the government's performance, though still high, has steadily dropped from its peak of 71 per cent in the January 2017 MOTN to around 56 per cent now.

On the other hand, Congress President Rahul Gandhi's popularity is on the rise again, with his rating moving up from a low of 10 per cent in the January 2017 MOTN to 27 per cent this time. The gap between Modi and him is still a large 22 percentage points, but it indicates that Rahul Gandhi is emerging as a challenger.

As far as performance on three fundamental issues- jobs, price rise and curbing corruption- is concerned the voters still perceived curbing corruption as Modi's single biggest achievement with the crackdown on black money, reduction in corruption within the government and demonetisation together totalling 44 per cent.

The voters appreciated Modi for introducing GST, Swachh Bharat and infrastructure development programmes, a host of other NDA government schemes, including the much-touted Jan Dhan Yojana, Digital India and Direct Benefit Transfers, receive a lukewarm response.

On controlling inflation, the opinion poll shows that there is growing trouble for him from the perception that price rise is beginning to cross danger levels.