Gallop for NDA, wallop for Congress: LS poll survey

The BJP-led NDA could win up to 231 seats in the Lok Sabha elections and the Congress could slide to its worst ever electoral performance if elections were held in January, says a survey released Friday.

The CNN-IBN CSDS election tracker said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would wrest 211-231 seats and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) would win 107-127 seats if elections were held today.

The survey predicts the BJP winning 192-210 seats and the Congress sliding to 92-108 seats. At present, the saffron party has 117 MPs and the Congress 204.

It said the NDA would be within striking distance of forming the government.

The survey's prediction said the Trinamool Congress, which rules West Bengal, was poised to bag 20-28 seats in West Bengal.

The AIADMK would win 15-23 seats in Tamil Nadu, Biju Janata Dal 10-16 seats in Odisha and the Samajwadi Party 8-14 seats in Uttar Pradesh.

The survey said the Janata Dal-United is slated to get 7-13 seats in Bihar and the Aam Aadmi Party 6-12 seats in Delhi. It predicts a dismal performance by the Left parties and said they would win 15-23 seats.

The YSR Congress is poised to win 11-19 seats, Bahujan Samaj Party 10-16 seats, Telugu Desam Party 9-15 seats, DMK 7-13 seats, Rashtriya Janata Dal 6-10 seats while both the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and the Janata Dal-Secular could bag four-eight seats.

The survey said UPA vote share was slated to go down from 31.5 percent in the 2009 general elections to 28 percent (January 2014) while that of NDA would shoot up from 21.5 percent to 36 percent over the same period.

The survey said BJP vote share could go up to 34 percent, a 15.2 percent jump since 2009 while the Congress vote share could decline to 27 percent from 28.6 percent.

The survey said 34 percent of those surveyed preferred Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate and 15 percent wanted Rahul Gandhi.

Sonia Gandhi had five percent ratings as prime ministerial candidate while Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had three percent.

"In a direct face-off between Modi and Rahul, 42 percent prefer the former and 25 percent the latter as PM (candidate). Forty-nine percent respondents across India say BJP's decision to name Modi as PM candidate was correct," the survey said.

It said 22 percent respondents preferred senior BJP leader L.K. Advani as prime ministerial choice if Modi is not accepted as the coalition leader after the elections.