UPA would still win polls today

New Delhi: A ruling coalition in the middle of its second term faces a crisis of legitimacy. The government's approval ratings fall. Its record on tackling corruption, price rise and terrorism is viewed with deep skepticism. The Prime Minister's own credibility takes a hit. Yet its share of popular votes does not drop. When the dummy votes 'cast' in the survey are counted, the ruling coalition is a couple of point higher than where it was two years ago.

This is the seemingly paradoxical finding of the CNN-IBN-CNBC-TV18 State of the Nation Poll in association with Forbes India conducted by the CSDS.
When asked who they would vote for if Lok Sabha elections are held tomorrow, a significant proportion of those who disapprove of the government said they would vote for the ruling UPA.
Mid-term opinion surveys in India tend to over-estimate the ruling party at the national level, especially if it is the Congress, and under-estimate all the small players and independents.
The estimates presented here by the CSDS team take this bias into account and adjusts for it based on past record of such over-reporting. Even after this adjustment, the UPA would have secured about 38 per cent votes, up by two percentage points compared to its vote share in 2009.
The NDA, too, would have gone up by two points to reach 26 per cent. Despite all the negatives associated with the current context, the ruling coalition has maintained its 12 percentage point lead over its main rival.
There is no dramatic change in the social basis of voting that could help explain this paradox.
The urban, educated, upper class vote that had significantly swung from the BJP to the Congress in 2009 appears to be tilting back in favour of the BJP.
The Congress is beginning to cultivate a youth constituency, as is the NDA among the peasant OBCs.
The BSP faces a significant erosion in its Dalit vote base in and outside UP and following the election defeats, the Left has experienced sharp erosion in its support among the poorest in Kerala and West Bengal.
Otherwise the social profile of voting is along the expected lines.
A key to understanding this paradox is of course to look at the state wise break-up. As states are the principal arena of political contestations, the national mood is filtered through the prism of state level political equation.
The range of political options available and the point at which the poll was carried out in the electoral cycle of the state can produce very unexpected consequences.
The UPA is holding on in some of the states where it won since 2009: Maharashtra, Kerala, West Bengal and Assam and to some extent Haryana.
Congress appears to be gaining from anti-incumbency sentiment in some key states: Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa are likely to swing towards Congress if Lok Sabha elections are held now (of these only Karnataka favours Congress in an Assembly contest).
These gains in votes more than make up the marginal losses in Gujarat and Rajasthan and serious erosion in Andhra Pradesh.
Except Rajasthan, NDA's vote gains come from states like Bihar and Gujarat where it has already hit a peak.
The UPA is well poised for the next round of assembly elections too: the popular tide seems to be turning in favour of the Congress in Punjab and Uttarakhand, while the party is poised to improve its performance in UP.
Another way to understand this paradoxical outcome is to keep in mind the wider context of political vacuum that characterises national politics. If the government is incoherent and devoid of any sense of purpose, the opposition too lacks an agenda or credibility.
The absence of political imagination and judgment that runs across the party political spectrum entails that the anger with ruling establishment does not get channelised into a political alternative. In the absence of a credible alternative, unhappy public turn back to the ruling party to look for a new face.
Government rating
In the last two decades, state politics has become the principal arena of political contestation. Ordinary citizens look at national politics through the prism of their own state.
The nature of political choices, party affiliations, major issues and political orientation of social communities is determined at the state level. In the 1990s, national mandates looked like nothing but a sum total of state level verdicts.
In the last two elections, especially in 2009, the national level asserted its autonomy again. In order to understand the national mood, therefore, we need to separate popular rating of the central and the state governments.
At the national level, the news for the UPA II government is not very good. More people are dissatisfied with its functioning now than in the last seven years. Popular opinion is evenly split on whether UPA government should get another chance.
This was not so with the UPA I in 2009 or even with the NDA in 2004.
When asked to compare UPA I with the current UPA II, the popular verdict is decisively against the current government, even among the UPA voters. Alienation from the present government is higher among the urban, educated and the well to do.
At the state level, the picture is mixed, though the UPA does not have much to celebrate here too. Four of the five top rated state governments are run by the BJP and its allies, while Congress and its allies figure thrice in the list of five bottom states in the list.
The presence of strong NDA leaders at the state level is clearly one reason.
Chief ministers like Nitish Kumar, Raman Singh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Narendra Modi have maintained, if not improved, their high approval ratings.
But some of BJP's first timers like Arjun Munda, Ramesh Pokhariyal and of course BS Yeddyurappa are not rated very highly.
For the UPA, some of the recently elected CMs like Mamata Banerjee, Oommen Chandy or recently re-elected CM Tarun Gogoi are exceptions to the general norm of indifferent ratings.
Long serving CMs like Sheila Dixit and Bhupinder Singh Hooda have experienced sharp erosion in their popularity. Ashok Gehlot and Prithviraj Chavan have very average ratings. In Kiran Kumar Reddy, the Congress also has the dubious distinction of having the only CM who gets more negative than positive rating. His rival Jagan Mohan Reddy enjoys a good deal of popular sympathy.
The assessment of the state government closely follows the personal rating of CMs, except that the Karnataka and Maharashtra governments were rated better than their chief ministers.
Ruling parties in the poll bound states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand face an unhappy electorate as the proportion of the electorate who wants them out exceeds those who want the incumbent government to continue.
In this respect the verdict on the UP and Uttarakhand government is worse than on their predecessors in the last assembly elections.
In Uttar Pradesh, the previous SP government is considered better than the current one. Some of the key non-committed communities like the Upper Castes, Muslims and the lower OBCs are against the BSP government and willing to give Congress a chance.
This national survey also provides an opportunity to assess popular mood on the contentious issue of Telangana. The public opinion in the state has polarised along regional lines around two of the six options suggested by the Srikrishna Commission.
Coastal Andhra and to a lesser degree Rayalseema is polarised behind the demand for maintaining the present undivided Andhra Pradesh.
Ironically, people in Telangana are less polarised but lean clearly in favour of a separate Telangana with Hyderabad as its capital. Over the last two years, the public mood as polarised further in both parts of the state.