A recent poll showed more than half of Indians were satisfied with the performance of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but unhappy about how he handled issues like price rise and terrorism, The Indian Express reported Sunday.

A nationwide poll made by the Indian Express and CNN-IBN TV channel showed 56 percent of Indians were satisfied with the performance of Singh who took office two years ago while 18 percent were dissatisfied and 26 percent had no opinion.

When asked to give the Prime Minister marks out of 100 on his work so far, the respondents in the survey gave 68 marks, the news paper quoted the survey report as saying.

The survey also showed Singh maintained the image of an honest, wise and trustworthy leader though his trust rating has dropped by about 5 percentage points from the poll in January.

But people were not happy about how Singh handled the specific issues like price rise, farmer suicide and terrorism.

According to the survey, 39 percent of the respondents said his policies in fighting terrorism were a failure while 22 percent thought it successful.

The report said the survey was done a few days after the serial blasts in Mumbai on July 11, which might affect the outcome on this issue.

Fifty-six percent of people said the Prime Minister, an economist, failed to cope with price rise when 17 percent said he succeeded on this issue.

Among the surveyed, 38 percent said his policy on farmer suicide failed while 22 percent said it was successful.

At least 745 farmers have committed suicide in west Indian state Maharashtra this year due to crop failure and growing debts. Singh had visited the area early this month and came out a program to help them.

The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) had done the survey for the Indian Express and CNN-IBN interviewing 1, 884 people at 106 locations in 53 assembly constituencies in 18 states of India from July 16 to 19.

The survey also showed Sonia Gandhi, President of the Congress Party and chairperson of the ruling coalition, remains the most popular leader in India gaining support from 29 percent respondents and A.B. Vajpayee, senior leader of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), ranked the second, followed by Manmohan Singh.

Source: Xinhua