LS polls 2014: Congress to be routed in Gujarat, MP, says poll

NEW DELHI: The BJP is likely to rout the Congress in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, and gain a healthy lead with its ally the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha polls, according to an opinion poll done for a TV channel.

The poll, done by CSDS for CNN-IBN, predicts that the BJP will win anywhere between 20 and 26 of Gujarat's 26 seats, while the Congress will at best win six seats and at worst draw a blank slate in Narendra Modi's home turf.

In Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP won a handsome victory in the state assembly elections last December, the CSDS poll suggests that the BJP will win 24 to 28 seats from the 29 the state has, which means the Congress could win as little as one seat or a maximum of five. In both these states, the BJP's vote share is projected at over 50 per cent and its lead over the Congress at about 24 percentage points, a huge advantage in essentially bi-polar states.

In Maharashtra, the BJP-Shiv Sena-RPI(A) alliance is projected as winning between 24 and 30 of the state's 48 seats, while the Congress-NCP combine may have to settle for somewhere between 16 and 22 seats. Here, the NDA's projected vote share of 43 per cent gives it a 10 percentage point lead over the UPA's 33 per cent. Interestingly, AAP with 5 per cent and BSP with 4 per cent are estimated to do better than the MNS' 3 per cent.

Chhattisgarh, the poll suggested, could see a closer battle with the BJP poised to win 44% of the votes and the Congress 39 per cent. The pollsters did not project seat tallies for this state, but a 5 percentage point lead in a two-horse race could well give the party with the lead, in this case BJP, a disproportionately higher seat tally.