New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA will score a slight majority of parliamentary seats in the Lok Sabha elections to be held in seven phases from April 11, a nationwide opinion poll has predicted.
The India TV CNX opinion poll, telecast after CEC Sunil Arora announced the election schedule, showed that the coalition led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi could win 285 seats, which is only 13 seats more than the midway mark in the 543-seat Lok Sabha.
In the 2014 General Elections, the BJP had won an absolute majority of 282 seats. However, the saffron party’s tally is predicted to come down to 238 seats, 34 short of the majority mark this time.
The opinion poll predicted that the Congress party will successfully increase its tally from 44 to 82 this time, with the UPA winning 126 seats. Other parties, including the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Trinamool Congress, Telangana Rashtra Samithi, besides other regional parties are expected to win in 132 seats.
Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress is expected to win 30 seats, Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party 18, Mayawati’s BSP 16, YSR Congress 22, and the TRS and Biju Janata Dal 14 seats each. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is projected to win 12 seats and the Left Front six.
The opinion poll was conducted between March 1 and March 7 in 193 out of the 543 parliamentary constituencies. The total voter sample was 38,600, out of which 20,455 were men and 18,145 were women.
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Ms Kalinga