Is there any way of actually gauging voter sentiment? Yes, it’s called an election and luckily for us, we have quite a few of them in India. Like any political party, the BJP has had ups and downs. In the 2015 Delhi elections, the BJP’s vote share was 32 percent and they won just three seats out of 70 – the rest went to Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party. In the Bihar election, the BJP had just 24 percent of the vote despite a high-decibel campaign by PM Modi.

In the most recent round of Assembly elections, the BJP won no seats in Kolkata or Chennai. Both cities were surveyed in the ToI-IPSOS poll. There are two possible explanations for the discrepancy: Either the ‘sentiment’ measured by the survey has no bearing on voting, or the survey itself is flawed.

Narendra Modi may well be the most popular leader in India. This survey, however, cannot be used to draw that conclusion.