The ruling United Progressive Alliance is expected to have a significant edge in the coming Lok Sabha elections with the Congress projected to remain the single largest party like in 2004 with a 144 seat haul in a likely hung Parliament, according to a poll survey.
The Week/C Voter election survey gives the Congress-led UPA 234 seats if the seats bagged by Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi party, Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal and Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party are also taken to account though the Congress does not have any seat sharing arrangement with these parties. The Congress had 145 members in the outgoing House.
The survey said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is projected to get 186, way behind the UPA with BJP expected to get 140 seats, two less than in 2004.
The magic figure for a majority is 272. The survey does not predict an anti-incumbency wave and though the Congress retains its 2004 seat level it drops seats in some states but gains spectacularly in states like Kerala. The United Progressive Alliance is seen to get a vote share of 35 per cent.
It projects Samajwadi to get 32 seats and the RJD and LJP together to bag 15. The Nationalist Congress Party and Trinamool Congress are expected to get 13 and 11 respectaively while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and its allies may net 13 seats, the survey said.
Among the BJP allies, Janata Dal-United and Shiv Sena are expected to bag 18 and 12 seats respectively. The survey said the National Democratic Alliance can hope that it will be the bigger pre-election alliance than the UPA and there is no major erosion in the BJP strengths in its strongholds. The NDA is projected to ge a vote share of 31 per cent.
The survey said there are no visible signs of post-electoral allies for the BJP though the ground situation could make regional parties rethink after assessing the political scenario.
The survey projected that the prospect for the Third Front is weak with the predicted number of 112 seats including those expected to be bagged by AIADMK not being big enough to woo other regional parties.
The Front is a grouping of Left and some regional parties. The four-party Left Front is likely to drop half their seats and suffer serious reverses in their bastions--Kerala and West Bengal. The Left is expected to get only 33 seats compared to 59 in the outgoing House.
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and its allies are projected to get 24 seats while the Telugu Desam Party and the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti together in Andhra Pradesh may get 14, the survey said.
