India Today Mood of the Nation Poll: Himanta Biswa Sarma third most popular CM, but…

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is the third most popular chief minister in India when chief ministers across the country were measured on their performance within the home state, reveals the latest edition of India Today Mood of the Nation Poll, released this February. Respondents in every state were asked to rate the performance of the chief ministers of their home states and 48.6 per cent respondents in Assam expressed satisfaction at his performance. 

Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik seems to have beaten anti-incumbency in an election year by topping this ranking for the seventh time in a row with 52.7 per cent respondents expressing satisfaction at his performance. To put it in context, 52.7 per cent of respondents of the total of 3,760 from Odisha said they were satisfied with Naveen Patnaik, while 48.6% of the 13,358 respondents from Assam expressed satisfaction with Himanta Biswa Sarma’s performance.

Interestingly, though Sarma has captured the third ranking, his popularity has seen a constant decline in one year. In August 2022, 68 per cent of respondents in Assam expressed satisfaction with his performance. Five months later, in January 2023, his share of respondents expressing happiness over Sarma’s performance soared to 68 per cent. In the next Mood of the Nation Poll held on August 2023, there was a massive decline in his support as respondents expressing satisfaction dropped to 49.2 per cent. 

In all India ranking, when respondents were asked to name the chief minister, they feel he is the best performer among the 30 incumbent chief ministers of the country, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath found place at the top of the list for eighth consecutive time. Of the total 1,49,092 respondents across the country, 46.3 per cent rated him as the best performing chief minister. In this list, Assam Chief Minister Sarma secured a distant seventh position with 2 per cent respondents backing his performance. 

This edition of the India Today Mood of the Nation poll was conducted by CVoter, a globally renowned name in the field of socio-economic research, between December 15, 2023, and January 28, 2024, interviewing 35,801 respondents covering all Lok Sabha segments across all states. In addition to these samples, an additional 1,13,081 interviews from CVoter’s regular tracker data between August 15, 2023, and January 31, 2023, were also analysed for the long-term trendline in projections calculation of votes and seats. Thus, the opinion of a total of 1,49,092 respondents was considered for this MOTN report. The margin of error is +/- 3 percent at macro level and +/- 5 per cent at micro level of reporting with 95 percent confidence level.

The India Today magazine has been conducting Mood of the Nation poll since 2001. This opinion poll is designed to gauge the public sentiment on various political matters, including the performance of the government, the popularity of leaders, and potential electoral outcomes. The poll's findings are significant as they reflect the mood of the nation ahead of crucial elections and provide insights into the political dynamics at play.