February 23, 2014
NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi-led NDA could be within touching distance of power, winning 236 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, leaving it just 36 seats short of the majority mark, according to an opinion poll conducted for a TV channel. BJP alone, the ABP News-AC Nielsen poll projected, would win 217 seats, comfortably its highest tally ever.
February 23, 2014
NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi-led NDA could be within touching distance of power, winning 236 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, leaving it just 36 seats short of the majority mark, according to an opinion poll conducted for a TV channel. BJP alone, the ABP News-AC Nielsen poll projected, would win 217 seats, comfortably its highest tally ever.
Narendra Modi as PM Candidate
The incumbent UPA, on the other hand, could fall to the two-digit mark, winning just 92 seats. Congress on its own would get a mere 73 seats, well below the worst it had ever done in the past, according to the poll. Left Front could do somewhat better than in 2009, winning 29 seats, while 'others' are predicted to bag the remaining 186. Among the 'others', Trinamool Congress would win 29 seats, AIADMK 19, BJD 16 and BSP and DMK 13 each, indicating that the battle in Tamil Nadu may not be as one-sided as many believe it is.
NDA's dominance, not surprisingly, is most marked in the north and west of the country, with the saffron alliance projected to win 88 seats in each of these regions compared to 23 for UPA in the north and 22 in the west. 'Others' would win 40 of 151 seats in the north and six of 116 in the west, the poll predicted.
The south could be the only region in which the NDA does not have a lead, with its tally here pegged at 21, but that is small consolation for the UPA, which is also estimated to win just 26 of the region's 134 seats. The bulk of seats, 72 of them, would go to 'others', which would include the two Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu, TRS, TDP and YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh and JD(S) in Karnataka. Left could bag 15 seats from the south.
In the east too, 'others' would be dominant force, winning 68 of the 142 seats. Apart from TMC, BJD and JD(U), this would include Lalu Prasad's RJD and Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP in Bihar, and smaller parties in Jharkhand, Assam and other parts of the northeast. NDA would win 39 seats from the region, the UPA 21 and Left 14, the poll predicted.
The poll also found that 57% of respondents wanted Modi as PM, 17% picked Rahul Gandhi and just 3% voted for Arvind Kejriwal. As for issues, inflation, corruption and unemployment, in that order, emerged as the main issues agitating the respondents.
Courtesy: PTI
