PUNJAB is set to repeat history by voting out the incumbent government in the upcoming polls.
Projections by the INDIA TODAYORG opinion poll, conducted in the first week of January, show the Congress is heading for a comfortable majority by securing 69 seats in the 117- member House. Fifty- nine is the half- way mark in the Punjab assembly.
Led from the front by an aggressive former CM Captain Amarinder Singh, the Congress is expected to add two per cent to its vote share that results in a gain of 25 additional seats to its current tally of 44.
The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal- BJP ( SAD- BJP) combine faces the prospect of seven per cent swing away from the alliance. This, the poll indicates, could result in a drop of as many as 27 seats from its current tally of 67.
The alliance will thus be arrested at 40, 19 short of the half- way mark.
Significantly, the Congress is not the only beneficiary of the seven per cent vote swing away from the SAD- BJP combine. While the state's main opposition party is attracting only two of the seven per cent erosion in the ruling alliance, it seems the " others" in the fray have more to gain in terms of vote percentage.
However, the Congress remains the main beneficiary in terms of seats, going well past the half- way mark by a gain of only two per cent.
The main factors contributing to the SAD- BJP alliance's decline is not just the traditional anti- incumbency factor, which remains evident in 61 per cent of the respondents polled in the survey rating the ruling alliance's performance as " average" or " poor".
Adding to anti- incumbency, a constant in Punjab politics, are political factors such as a split in the Akali votes by the departure of Manpreet Singh Badal and a visible popular discomfort with the prospect of current CM Parkash Singh Badal's son Sukhbir as CM. Only 14.3 per cent of the voters surveyed favour Sukhbir as CM, while 28.6 per cent still want his father back in the saddle.
But Amarinder is the most popular choice for CM, with 32 per cent voters favouring his candidature. Forty- four per cent believe only the Congress can best serve Punjabi interests.
The Captain, however, has no reason to be complacent as his party is encumbered because of the negative impulses towards the central government and the scams that have hit the UPA in the past one year.
There is resentment against the UPA, perceived as it is as either unwilling or too incompetent to tackle corruption.
Anna Hazare's campaign has just added to the Congress's woes.
Manpreet is the untested weapon expected to damage the Akalis in their stronghold in southwestern Punjab, the region popularly referred to as Malwa. The survey shows Manpreet's People's Party of Punjab has contributed to the erosion of SAD's base in its traditional pocketborough.
In the eventual analysis of poll projections, the Congress seems to have a clear advantage despite internal fights.
The Captain, it appears, is all set to be honoured by the voters once again - only the second CM to achieve such a feat after Pratap Singh Kairon.
METHODOLOGY
The INDIA TODAY- ORG opinion poll was conducted in 20 randomly selected representative assembly constituencies across Punjab. A total of 4,012 voters were interviewed by means of a structured questionnaire. The sample was proportionately allocated to urban and rural areas. Similarly, a quota size was fixed to obtain a suitable proportion of SC voters. The survey was carried out between January 3 and 10.
The findings are subject to a margin of error of 3 per cent.
The projection of votes and seats was done by measuring the shift in votes for each party/ alliance ( by eliciting answers on voting intention and recording how the same voters voted the last time) and extrapolating this shift onto the actual votes polled in the last election.