NDA Rides on Popular Wave in Puducherry, Will Pocket 25 Out of 30 Seats: Survey

A pre-poll survey conducted between March 5 and 12 by Cfore and Asianet News Network has found that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is riding on “popular wave” in Puducherry, pocketing 25 of 30 seats.

The survey predicted that All India NR Congress-BJP-AIADMK alliance will get 23-27 seats, while DMK-Congress will get three to seven seats and other may manage one seat or none.

The survey asked people about their opinion on resignation of PWD minister A Namassivayam (who was also former PCC President) and five other MLAs. Forty two per cent people said that the leaders made a mistake by quitting, while 29% people said that this was because of “bad style of functioning” of ex-chief minister V Narayanasamy and 18% said that the MLAs were “disillusioned and unhappy with the Congress”.

Cfore said in a statement that systematic random sampling methodology was used in selecting respondents for the survey. “In all 5,077 voters were interviewed using a structured questionnaire spread across all 30 constituencies. These respondents were spread across 223 urban 113 rural locations in the state,” it said.

The Congress led government fell on February 22 after it was reduced to a minority in the wake of a spate of resignations. After all these resignations, the number of MLAs supporting the Puducherry government in the Assembly had been reduced to 12, including the Speaker. This included MLAs from the DMK and an independent candidate. The Opposition, on the other hand, had 14 MLAs. The effective strength of the House came down from 33 to 26. The simple majority mark was 14.

Narayanasamy accused former Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi and the Centre of colluding with the Opposition to topple his government. “As our MLAs stayed united we managed to pull off the last 5 years,” he said. The former chief minister also alleged that Bedi did not allow him to do his work.