Election Tracker: Mood in Rajasthan is deeply, unshakably anti-Congress

As with everything else the Congress in New Delhi is now trying, making the young and well-spoken Sachin Pilot the face of the Congress in Rajasthan is apparently a case of too little too late.

In fact, not only has Firstpost argued earlier that Pilot is the one person who could stand between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the 25 Lok Sabha seats of the desert state but this piece also predicted that Pilot has the skills to eclipse Vasundhara Raje in the next election. Not in 2014.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje. Reuters

The findings of the Lokniti-IBN Election Tracker survey bear that out.

Barely a month after BJP's resounding victory in Rajasthan despite the torrent of freebies the Congress government under Ashok Gehlot had fallen back upon, the mood in Rajasthan is still deeply, unshakably anti-Congress. If elections are to be held now, the Congress party's vote share in the state would fall dramatically from 47 percent in the 2009 election to an estimated 33 percent now, a rapid decline even from a July 2013 survey when the vote share was pegged at 44 percent.

The BJP, on the other hand, will see its share rise from 37 percent to 54 percent of the votes polled.

Notably, the survey also found that many more Rajasthan residents believed that the BJP owes its win in December's Assembly polls to Narendra Modi than to now Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje. Of those surveyed, 21 percent believed Modi was at the root of the BJP's resounding win, 11 percent believed it was Raje who deserved the credit.

While that may be so, Modi has reposed complete faith in Raje, letting her staff her Cabinet with loyalists just like he supported her choice of candidates. The results of that cohesion are expected to be near identical too.

The rest of the data from the survey follows a now familiar trajectory -- the UPA's ratings are down, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's personal ratings are down too. As much as 54 percent of respondents don't want the UPA to get another chance, and 49 percent are dissatisfied with Dr Singh's performance, almost twice the percentage who were dissatisfied with the PM during a July 2013 survey.

Again, Modi's own popularity has grown. From 30 percent in 2013, 48 percent now want him to be prime minister. Rahul's own ratings have grown somewhat -- from 20 percent to 23 percent, but again perhaps a case of too little too late.

Not even the AAP factor threatens the BJP in Rajasthan this election. Though a large number of respondents had heard of AAP, only 12 percent were inclined to vote for a candidate from the debutante party.