NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has bounced back as the main challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and opinion polls tip it to win the Delhi assembly elections this week.

The anti-corruption AAP, which filed cases against big corporates during its brief tenure last year, was considered a month ago to have lost much of its support base across Delhi.

It is, however, likely to storm back to power in the national capital if multiple opinions polls are to be believed.

Take a look: Indian Elections 2014

The BJP, which has been flaunting successive victories in several state polls barring Jammu and Kashmir, is expected to finish second in Delhi. Election is scheduled on February 7 and the results will be declared on February 10.

A nervous BJP has mobilised more than 100 party MPs to canvass support among the caste and regional mix that make up the electorate. The absence of the Congress as the main opponent has made it difficult for Mr Modi to target a quarry.

He appeared in a major rally but his attack on AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal seems to have not worked.

A poll by TNS for the Economic Times, said AAP is likely to get 36-40 seats in the 70-member Assembly with BJP likely to repeat its 2013 score of 28-32 seats. The AAP vote share will soar to 49 per cent, its best ever showing, the poll predicts. The Congress, considered a non-starter in these polls, will end up with 2-4 seats. The survey was reportedly carried out across 16 constituencies with 3,260 respondents.

The same picture is visible in another survey, carried out by ABP news-Nielsen. The survey predicts 35 seats for AAP with a vote-share of 37pc and 29 seats for the BJP with a corresponding vote-share of 33pc. What is noteworthy in this survey is that the AAP draws maximum support from lower-caste groups along with SC/ST communities and Muslims. The latest survey is in stark contrast to the polling firm’s earlier surveys where the BJP had a lead over the AAP.

A third survey conducted by Hindustan Times-C has predicted 36-41 seats for Kejriwal’s party with the BJP trailing a close second with 27-32 seats.

Congress’s fortunes do not seem to shine even in this poll with the party predicted to win 2-7 seats.

A successive defeat in Delhi, where the Congress ruled for 15 long years, could dampen the cadre’s morale. A total of 3,578 respondents were queried in the survey with half of them women.

One factor on which all three surveys emphatically agree on is the overwhelming popularity of Kejriwal among Delhi voters.

While the ET survey shows Kejriwal getting support of 54pc of voters as a chief ministerial candidate, he gets 46pc backing in the Hindustan Times survey and 48pc support in the ABP poll.

This also shows that the BJP’s decision to project Kiran Bedi as its face in the polls does not seem to have worked. She is second to Kejriwal in terms of popularity in all three surveys. Ajay Maken, who leads the Congress campaign, gets poor ratings in all three polls.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play