By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram  

Supporters of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), the main opposition party of the northeastern Assam state, take part in an election rally in Guwahati yesterday. Assam goes to polls

The opposition Congress Party-led United Democratic Front (UDF) is poised to emerge victorious in the April 13 elections in Kerala, according to a survey commissioned by the Deccan Chronicle newspaper.The survey conducted between March 3 and 19 in the age group of 18-25 which represents 20% of the total electorate found 42% favoured the UDF while 31% wanted the ruling Left Democratic Front coalition to remain in power.The survey was carried out by the market research group C-fore across the state amid high-voltage political drama over the candidature of octogenarian Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and others have found favour with only 6.5% of the respondents while 20% could not make up their mind before knowing the candidates they are going to vote for.Congress MP Rahul Gandhi is the most favourite leader of the Kerala youngsters (26%) followed by Defence Minister A K Antony (14), former UN official Shashi Tharoor (12), Achuthanandan (9.5), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi (8 each), state leaders Oommen Chandy (7) and Ramesh Chennithala (5) and federal minister Vayalar Ravi and state Marxisrt leader Pinarayi Vijayan (2% each).The survey posed a direct question: which party/coalition are you going to vote for if the assembly elections were held tomorrow. The response showed the UDF had an 11% edge over the LDF among the young voters.“The youngsters seem to be impatient for an economic and developmental upsurge and they echo the trend seen in elections held in several other states in recent times,” said John Mary, political editor of the newspaper which launched its Kerala edition last week. A general survey held about a fortnight ago among voters by the same agency for Asianet television also showed similar trends when it forecast the UDF getting 77 to 87 seats in the 140-seat assembly as the UDF had an edge of 4% over the LDF.The political loyalty of 37% of the respondents lie with UDF and 20% with the ruling LDF led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) while a whopping 43% remained neutral or none of the two. While 58% said they would “definitely” vote in the coming elections, 30% said “may be.”The youth were uninspired by the LDF, with 49% rating its performance “average.” Only 4% thought it was “excellent,” but 18% rated it “good,” 19% “bad” and 10% felt it was “very bad”. The majority of the youth did not feel enthusiastic about lawmakers who represented them; 56% rated the performance of their elected representatives “average.”Some 69% said the environment in Kerala was ripe for a huge economic surge. The state of physical infrastructure - roads, drinking water and waste disposal - would influence 79% of the respondents in the choice of their legislators while 84% said they were dissatisfied with the politicians’ commitment to fight graft.Seventy five percent welcomed economic reforms as they create more jobs and 26% cited irresponsible politics as the reason slowing Kerala down compared to its southern neighbours.While 18% felt the state needed clean bureaucrats, 15% wanted better professionals and 13% better teachers to mould a new Kerala.The youth also wanted Kerala to slap a ban on strikes and shutdowns for promoting economic growth. They felt Kerala needed more special economic zones (22%) and more investment in infrastructure (15%) to ensure industrial growth.Around 20% of the youth underlined that business must be insulated from trade unionism and that Kerala must have a better tax holiday (10%) to invite investments.As many as 19% of the youth prefer to see E Sreedharan, who put the Delhi Metro on rails, in politics followed by philanthropist businessman Kochousep Chittilappally (17%) who donated his kidney recently and writer M T Vasudevan Nair (14) while 7% are fans of non-resident Indian businessman Yusuffali M A.