PM Modi’s approval rating surges to 67% in February, up 7% from December

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s approval rating has improved in February 2023, to 67%, witnessing a 7% surge from December 2022 and the previous rating of 60%. Approval rating assesses PM Modi’s performance in handling his job as the prime minister of the country and presents a report card of how the citizens rate him. 

The survey launched in December 2022, now enters its 2nd wave, though Ipsos says it will now assess every quarter, with the next wave in April 2023. 

The survey is rigorous in its coverage (pan India covering 16 cities across regions), with the representation of the metros, and tier 1, 2 and 3 cities, covering all socio-economic classifications of SEC A, B and C and specific groups of people by professions; and it follows a scientific method of interviewing and the same set of respondents are not repeated in each wave.     

Interestingly, those aged 18-30 years have given Modi a higher approval rating of 70%, while those aged 30-45 years and above, gave Modi an approval rating of 65% on his performance as the PM of the country. 

Issues and how PM Modi stacks up

Assessment of the Modi govt on some of the key issues showed, the government has done well on some issues, on some issues the performance is middle of the road, while on some issues the ratings were quite low. Though over the previous wave (in Dec), we see improvement across almost all areas.

Modi Govt’s strong performance areas emerging in February were Education (78%), Sanitation and Cleanliness (63%) and Healthcare (58%). Views were polarized for Pollution and Environment (48%), while the areas where the govt received low ratings were, Inflation (33%), Poverty (31%), Unemployment (30%) and Corruption (30%). Though the good news is, the Modi govt has improved performance across all issues in February 2023 vis-à-vis December 2022, except Unemployment, where the performance has dropped by a notch.

“The Modi government has bettered its approval ratings in February 2023 over the previous wave and also across most issues. While education, sanitation and healthcare are some of the success areas of the government with the positive impact they have generated on the masses; inflation, poverty, unemployment and corruption are some of the areas that need greater intervention and attention, to uplift the social and economic status of the masses. While the union budget announced earlier in the month, has positive tidings for the middle class, the actual benefit is yet to impact their lives, as it is a tad early to assess the impact,” said Parijat Chakraborty, Group Service Line Leader, Public Affairs & Corporate Reputation.            

“Ipsos conducts approval ratings in many countries to inform governments about how the citizens perceive their performance, helping govts to improve and address need gaps within their tenure, ongoingly,” added Chakraborty.    

Ipsos IndiaBus is a monthly pan-India quantitative survey, that uses a structured questionnaire and is conducted by Ipsos India on diverse topics among 2219 respondents from SEC A, B and C households, covering all adults of both genders from all four zones in the country. The survey is conducted in metros, tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 towns, providing a more robust and realistic view of urban Indians. The respondents were polled face-to-face and online. The data is weighted by demographics and city-class population to arrive at the national average. The margin of error is +/-5% with 95% accuracy levels.