M A I N   N E W S

BJP survey predicts 186 seats for NDA
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 27
An internal survey conducted by the BJP has predicted that the NDA will win 186 Lok Sabha seats out of 276 seats for which elections have been held so far.

The survey conducted by BJP’s cadres and workers, predicted that the BJP will win 133 seats on its own out of the 183 it contested and its allies are tipped to get 53, party sources said here today.

After the first two phases, the party has predicted 21 seats for the Telugu Desam Party and the BJP in Andhra Pradesh out of 42 seats, while in Bihar the party has assessed that the BJP and its allies would sweep 25 out of 28 seats in Bihar.

The party has assessed that it will win 12 of the 32 seats in Uttar Pradesh in the first two phases of polling.

The party and the NDA are poised to win 23 of the 48 seats in Maharashtra, 23 out of 28 in Karnataka, 24 out of 26 in Gujarat and 19 out of 21 in Orissa. The party expects the NDA to win 11 of the 14 seats in Jharkhand and mop up all 11 seats in Chhattisgarh.

Following is the party’s assessment for the states: nine out of 13 seats in Assam, both the seats in Goa, one of the three seats in Jammu and Kashmir, and one seat each in Manipur, Mizoram, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. In Meghalaya, the party expects to win both seats.

PM questions exit polls
Our Correspondent

Lucknow, April 27
A day after exit polls predicted the downslide of the BJP-led NDA government in the on-going Lok Sabha elections, the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee questioned the veracity of these exit polls and asked the voters not to get flustered by these polls and to use their right of franchise judiciously.

“What kind of poll is this,” he asked the people while addressing an election rally at his parliamentary constituency in Lucknow today.

He said these polls could reflect the true mood of the voters. “Had it been true there would have been no need for actual polls,” he said and added jocularly: ‘Yedi yeh poll such hote to maidan mein bas poll hee rah jaate’.

“The time has come for you to use your right of franchise and use it judiciously. Do not get swayed by the outcome of exit polls, these cannot be true as these polls do not reflect the true picture of democracy,” the prime minister said.