Survey Sredicts 200+ Seats for BJP-led NDA in 2014 LS Polls; 89 for Congress

NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party will emerge as the front-runner in the upcoming general election, according to the Times NOW-C Voter national poll projection unveiled on Thursday. The latest pre-poll survey predicts a big surge for BJP from the last election, taking the seat count for the National Democratic Alliance that it leads to 227, just 55 short of a simple majority. That compares with 159 Lok Sabha seats for NDA in 2009. The findings are in line with those of recent opinion polls. The poll projection gives Aam Aadmi Party three out of seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi and one each in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Haryana and a Union Territory, making up a total seven for the debutant political party. The biggest loser, according to the survey, will be the ruling Congress party. The Grand Old Party is expected to win just 89 seats, losing 117 across the country and in just about every state.

The sole saving grace for Congress and the only state in which BJP will lose seats is Karnataka, according to the survey. But the loss there won't be huge, according to the pollsters, who put it at just eight seats.

BJP is expected to gain 86 seats more than its 2009 tally, primarily from Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Bihar, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Delhi, rising to 202 from 116. It's also seen winning one seat in Kerala, where the party is yet to win a parliamentary or assembly seat or even come second in such a race.

However, BJP's support swell doesn't seem that evident in Uttar Pradesh, where the survey gives the party 34 out of 80 seats. At the height of its popularity in the state in the 1990s, BJP had 57 seats. This was before Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh.

NDA is expected to scale up its vote share by 10%. BJP's alliance partners in NDA, Shiv Sena, Shiromani Akali Dal and Republican Party of India, are also seen doing well. The biggest gainer, interestingly, won't be NDA, but 'others', whose tally will rise to 215 from 125 in 2009. Going by the survey's findings, this block will be almost equal in number to NDA and could become a decisive factor, depending on how the post-poll scenario develops.

The survey was conducted between January 15 and February 8, and is based on a sample size of 14,142 respondents across 28 states.

Source: Economic Times