New Delhi, Oct 14 (IANS): Himachal Pradesh will go to elections on November 12 and an opinion poll indicates that the ruling BJP seems set to retain the state.

The opinion poll conducted by CVoter for ABP News reveals that the ruling party is all set to return to power by winning a projected 46 per cent vote share and 42 seats in an assembly of 68 members. The sample size for the tracking poll was 6,245 respondents.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi is proving to be a decisive factor, there are clear indications that a generational change of leadership seems to be an ongoing process in the state.

The absence of a strong new generation of leaders seem to be affecting the prospects of the Congress that should have benefited from strong anti-incumbency sentiments in the state.

Besides, the departure of the tall Congress leader Virbhadra Singh from the political scene seems to have let the Congress without a strong regional leadership.

According to the CVoter survey for ABP News, 31.9 per cent of the respondents stated that current Chief Minister and BJP leader Jairam Thakur is their preferred choice as Chief Minister. He was a surprise choice of the BJP when the party had wrested power from the Congress in 2017 and many had thought former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal would once again become the CM.

While 17.9 per cent of respondents prefer Pratibha Singh, widow of Virbhadra Singh, as the next Chief Minister, another Congress leader Mukesh Agnihotri gets 6.2 per cent of the vote.

The surprise package is Union Minister Anurag Thakur who is the preferred choice as CM for 25.7 per cent of the respondents. For a leader to be so close to the sitting CM in preference patterns of voters indicates the shape of things to come in the future.