Bharti raid and dharna dent AAP image: Survey

NEW DELHI: The recent stand-off between AAP and the Delhi Police has dented the party's image, but it remains the Delhiites' preferred electoral choice, an opinion poll done by a TV channel suggested.

The poll, done by AC Nielsen for ABP News and released on Monday, said 55% felt that the incident involving Delhi law minister Somnath Bharti has damaged AAP's reputation. On the question of whether chief minister Arvind Kejriwal should have sat on dharna on the issue, opinion was more evenly divided with 50% saying he shouldn't but an almost equal 48% saying he was right to do so.

Despite these misgivings, however, the poll showed that 55% rated Kejriwal's performance as CM so far as "good" or "very good", while only 16% rated is as "poor" or "very poor". Not surprisingly then, 63% said they would vote for AAP if assembly elections were held tomorrow.

More importantly, in the immediate political context, 51% said they would vote for AAP even in the Lok Sabha polls. This was despite the fact that when asked to pick their preferred PM candidate, 55% chose Narendra Modi against 37% for Kejriwal and 10% for Rahul Gandhi. This seems to suggest that in Delhi the 'Modi wave' may not be absent but may be of little use to the BJP in electoral terms.