Modi as 'Best Choice for PM' falls from 66% to 24%

New Delhi: The 'Mood of the Nation' survey done by the India Today magazine has found that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who until last year was the first choice as next prime minister for 66% of the country, has seen a slip to 24%.

A large reason behind this is the second wave of COVID-19, the way the Centre handled it and the related and crucial economic concerns that it gave rise to.

The second-most popular choice for prime minister is Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath, who 11% have mentioned as first choice for the post. At third, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is first choice for prime minister for 10%. Both Adityanath and Gandhi have seen a rise in popularity – the former from 3% last year and the latter from 8%. However, Adityanath is seventh when it comes to a ranking of chief ministers based on the assessment of people in their own states – a list that Tamil Nadu's new chief minister M.K. Stalin is leading with 42% of votes. Ahead of Adityanath is Odisha's Naveen Patnaik, Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan, Maharashtra's Uddhav Thackeray, Bengal's Mamata Banerjee, and Assam's Himanta Biswa Sarma. Himanta and Adityanath are the only two Bharatiya Janata Party chief ministers in the top 10. However, the finding that only 29% of Uttar Pradesh gave Adityanath a positive rating is a telling statistic ahead of the assembly election in the state in 2022. The findings of the poll have been published in the magazine and were the topic of the primetime discussion on the television news channel run by the same news house. Several on social media have, meanwhile, tweeted on the findings of the survey.