Global Survey: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the World’s Most Popular Leader With 77% Approval Rating
- Business intelligence company Morning Consult, which released the data, noted that the BJP leader’s has “the highest percentage of domestic approval, with over two-thirds of Indians approving of his performance.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the world’s most popular leader with an approval rating of 77 percent, according to data released earlier this month by business intelligence company Morning Consult. The survey, conducted by Political Intelligence, a proprietary platform of Morning Consult, also revealed that 17 percent disapprove of Modi, while five percent have no opinion of him. Modi has “the highest percentage of domestic approval, with over two-thirds of Indians approving of his performance,” Morning Consult said. The website said this is no recent development, noting that “his popularity has been consistently high for years now.”
Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is ranked second on the list with an approval rating of 64 percent. President Joe Biden is in the ninth spot with an approval rating of 37 percent, while UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s approval rating of 27 percent places him in the 12th spot.
Data was collected from Dec. 13, 2023, to Jan. 2. Approval ratings are based on a seven-day moving average of adult residents in each country, with sample sizes varying by country.
As India is gearing up for general elections earlier this year, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is almost guaranteed a win. The prime minister is seeking a third term. As The Guardian notes, “the consensus among political analysts in India’s current political landscape is that a win for Modi and the BJP is the most plausible outcome.” According to the publication, Modi’s “popularity to appeal to the large Hindu majority of the country, particularly in the populous Hindi belt of the north, resulting in the widespread persecution of Muslims.”
On Jan. 22, he inaugurated a grand temple to Lord Ram in the flashpoint city of Ayodhya. He said it heralded “a new era” for India – the temple replaces a 16th-Century mosque torn down by Hindu mobs in 1992, sparking riots in which nearly 2,000 people died.
(Top photo, Narendra Modi/Facebook)