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| Tuesday, 6 April 2004 |
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Opinion poll gives slender majority for Indian PM NEW DELHI, Monday (AFP) India's ruling Hindu nationalists hold a slender majority ahead of parliamentary polls beginning April 20 on the back of the personal popularity of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, a survey said. The poll, conducted for the Star News channel, said Vajpayee's National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition would get around 271 to 283 of the 544 elected seats in the lower house of parliament. A government needs 272 MPs for a majority. The main opposition Congress party and its allies were predicted to get 158 to 170 seats. The poll was carried out by the New Delhi-based C-Voter polling agency of 12,000 people in 120 constituencies. No margin of error was specified. Within the NDA, Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expected to gain 200 seats or more while the other allies were expected to shrink from 118 to about 68 seats. The BJP had 183 seats in the last parliament. "One of the interesting findings of the poll is the impressive performance of parties that are not aligned with either of the two main blocks," a release on the survey said. Regional parties have gained tremendous clout in India's politics in recent years as no national party has been able to get a majority on its own. The release said Vajpayee continued to be the NDA's "biggest trump card" with 50 percent of the electorate wanting him to return as prime minister. Last week, another poll conducted jointly by television channel NDTV, national daily The Indian Expresss and pollster A.C. Nielsen predicted a handsome win for the NDA giving it 287-307 seats. |
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