New Delhi, May 03: Elections have added to the heat this summer. Political temperatures are rising and everyone wants to know what the hitherto unimportant common man particularly in Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s constituency Lucknow, which has witnessed the saree stampede tragedy just recently, has got on his mind. Zee News-Taleem survey also tried to get into the voter’s mind in its attempt to gaze into the crystal bowl as to know as to what lies ahead. Lucknow is a constituency that’s not voting for any MP but voting to elect a Prime Minister. The focus of the Zee-News Taleem survey was to audit as to how the recent developments in the battle for the 14th Lok Sabha appearing on the mind of the Lucknow electorate.

To gauge PM’s popularity in his own constituency, the respondents were asked as to who they think would win from Lucknow. The results predicted an overwhelming victory for the Prime Minister with 72% seeing him as the undisputed winner. Ram Jethmalani gathered 9% vote clearly highlighting that its hardly a contest as it has been made to be. Madhu Gupta and Naseer Ali Siddiqi found favour with 10 and 7% respondents respectively while only 2% said that they would vote for some other candidate.

The next question in line was- Who will you vote for in these elections? The people of Lucknow have the mental clarity that is a voter’s dream and it reflected in the survey. BJP ruled the roost in Lucknow with 54%, followed by Congress with 26%, BSP comes third with 11%, Samajwadi Party will follow with 15% and a tiny 1 % favouring the Independent candidates. The analysis clearly shows that BJP still continues to be the favourite for the voters in Lucknow.
Lucknow constituency served as a stage for much of a political drama in these elections. From Ram Jethmalani’s threats of withdrawing from the elections to PM’s reservations over serving another term no politician spared Lucknow the melodrama. The snap poll was an attempt to check whether all this has affected the voters in the all-important constituency-Lucknow.

The poll also tried to read more into the saree stampede incident in Lucknow and how it would affect the voter’s preferences. Answering the query as whether the stampede incident would affect the voter’s preferences. 13% of the respondents said yes whereas 87% responded negatively.
Amid the clutter of statements by the PM hinting at his retirement the snap poll held out a question to check if all that talk about retirement had made the voter change his mind. 47% still favoured the BJP as their first choice despite all the talk about PM’s retirement. 11% chose the Congress. Whereas the other two important players known more by their reputation of being king-makers, BSP and SP got embraced by 10 and 13% respectively. Independents got a yes from 18%.

Last question was an attempt to know as to who continues to be the favourite with the people of Lucknow to become the next Prime Minister. Atal Bihari Vajpayee again came out as a clear winner with 65%. Sonia Gandhi’s report card however didn’t see her come out with flying colours with the Congress president only getting 15% votes. Laloo Prasad Yadav who has been quite vocal about his intentions of becoming Prime Minister only got him 1% in the snap poll, while Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati got 10 and 9% respectively. Bureau Report