Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das of the BJP is the most popular choice among the voters for the CM's post in the upcoming Assembly elections in the state.

Despite the setback in alliance combinations in Jharkhand where AJSU did not tie up with the BJP, Das is voters' favourite for the CM's post with 28 per cent of the votes.

These trends are part of the IANS-CVoter Jharkhand Opinion Poll released on Wednesday.

The popularity of the BJP Chief Minister has come down a notch from 29.7 per cent in September to 29.1 per cent in October and 28 per cent in November. Even then, Das remains well ahead of the race in which the next candidate, Hemant Soren of JMM, trails him by more than 5 percentage points.

Soren is in second position for the top job of CM in Jharkhand with 22.7 per cent of votes in November. Soren is actually down in the ratings from September when he was getting 25.9 per cent of the votes, according to the survey, which dipped to 21.9 per cent in October.

Babulal Marandi of the JVM closely trails Soren with 21.9 per cent of the voters in the survey opting for him in the month of November.

Marandi had a higher chunk of the votes in September at 22.4 per cent which dipped to 18.1 per cent in October.

The surprise revealed by the survey is that the CM appeal of senior BJP leader Arjun Munda is going up sharply even though he is not a contender for the CM's post.

The BJP has declared that Raghubar Das will be the CM face in Jharkhand Assembly elections.

The strong showing by Munda among the voters possibly indicate the lack of appeal of Raghubar Das and Munda's tribal appeal. From just 1.7 per cent in September, Munda is the choice of more than 8 per cent of the voters in October and November.

The remaining CM contenders are not even a blip on the screen. Sudesh Kumar Mahto of the AJSU has 3.2 per cent of votes, Shibu Soren of JMM at 2.6 per cent, Rameshwar Oraon of the Congress at 0.4 per cent, Pradeep Balmuchu of the Congress at 0.2 per cent and Subodh Kant Sahay, also of the Congress, at 0.4 per cent.

According to Team Cvoter, the survey was conducted in Week 4 of November among 8,923 respondents and it covers 14 Lok Sabha and 81 Vidhan Sabha constituencies.