How has the Congress High Command’s decision to replace the sitting Chief Minister a few months before the election been taken by the voters of Punjab? What does Punjab think of the new Chief Minister’s performance in the first three months of taking over? What are the key issues the state will vote for? Will the prolonged farmer’s agitation have an effect on the mood of the electorate? And, which party is Punjab likely to vote for in the upcoming elections. Who do they want to see as the future Chief Minister? These are some of the questions answered in the most comprehensive survey (sample size of 21,000 covering all constituencies) ahead of the Punjab Polls-Outlook-Hansa Research Mood of Punjab survey.
Here are the results.
Background
- Punjab has 22 districts and is divided into 3 regions, having 117 total constituencies.
- Punjab is dominated by mainly three parties – Indian National Congress , Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) (SAD).
- Congress formed the government after the 2017 Punjab Assembly elections in which the Congress won 77 out of 117 Assembly seats and Captain Amarinder Singh took over as the Chief Minister.
- In the 2017 elections, the then allies Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and SAD contested together as alliance partners but were decimated, winning only 15 of the 117 seats.
- In Punjab, the AAP is the newest in the political bloc. It won 20 seats in the 2017 elections with a vote share of 23.8 percent.
- In the last Assembly polls, the BJP, which was in alliance with SAD, had contested 23 seats and won only three seats. The party saw its vote share decline from 7.2 percent in 2012 to 5.4 percent.
