Can Arvind Kejriwal emerge as opposition's prime ministerial candidate?

By: Team India Tracker

CVoter-India Tracker did a survey to find out what the country thinks about Arvind Kejriwal and his prime ministerial ambitions

The opposition parties are scrambling to find out Prime Minister Narendra Modi's challenger in the run-up of 2024 Loksabha elections. The latest to throw his hat is AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal. The Delhi chief minister has held out the slogan, Make India Number 1, and is planning a nation-wide tour to drum up support and feed his own ambition to be the Prime Minister. His being the only regional party that governs more than one state substantiates his claim.

With Rahul Gandhi unwilling to preside the Congress and Mamata Banerjee, Sharad Pawar, Nitish Kumar are yet to make their national ambitions clear, its natural Kejriwal senses an opportunity. Although its a fact that as a national party, AAP has performed poorly in both 2014 and 2019 elections. While the party could only manage to win 4 loksabha seats (all in Punjab) in 2014, it could manage to retain only one of it in 2019. The party lost that single seat too and today his party does not have any representation in the Lok Sabha. Kejriwal himself had lost his parliamentary elections in 2014 against then NDA Prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi.

CVoter-India Tracker did a survey to find out what the country thinks about Arvind Kejriwal and his prime ministerial ambitions. The respondents were asked will Kejriwal emerge as the opposition's prime ministerial candidate through the Make India No 1 campaign. The results will certainly not make the AAP chief happy. Close to 53 percent responded negatively, while 47 percent respondents felt he has all the qualities to be a prime ministerial candidate.

The support for Kejriwal was low amongst youths. Only 48 percent respondents belonging to 18-24 age group supported him. Support amongst senior citizens was 57 percent.

Kejriwal also could not find support among both rural and urban voters. 52 percent rural respondents and 51 percent urban respondents felt Kejriwal should not be opposition's prime ministerial candidate. 

We found a mixed result in ethnic groups. 61 percent Dalits and 55 percent Tribals supported Kejriwal's ambitions as opposed to only 35 percent upper caste Hindus. Support for Kejriwal among Muslims was 70 percent. Despite the fact that AAP got a 2/3 majority in recently concluded Punjab elections, support for Arvind Kejriwal among Sikhs was only 55 percent. 

While Kejriwal is banking on his clean image and good governance, its also a reality that AAP has no national presence yet. Except Punjab and Delhi, it has performed poorly in state elections and is yet to establish a formal base in many states.