Voter support for India's embattled ruling Congress party, which marked the second anniversary of its re-election at the weekend, has fallen "significantly", according to a new poll. The decline in popularity comes as the Congress-led coalition reels from a string of corruption scandals and stubbornly high inflation.
Congress would get 30 percent of votes if general elections were held now, according to the poll of 9,000 respondents. This contrasts with 37 percent of the same respondents who said they voted for Congress in the 2009 elections. The STAR News-Nielsen survey, conducted in 28 cities, said the party was losing voter support across all regions.
But Congress maintained a significant edge over the main opposition Hindu national Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had the support of just 23 percent of voters, the findings showed. But there was good news for Congress Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Some 47 percent of respondents believed his performance was good or very good, 34 percent ranked him average while only 18 percent felt his showing was either poor or very poor. The poll's findings come as Singh's reputation for probity has been on the line amid charges that he has allowed graft to go unchecked during his seven years in office.
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