BJP to win in UP and Bihar, says ABP-Nielsen poll

An ABP News-Nielsen opinion poll has predicted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is likely to win 40 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and 21 in Bihar if the Lok Sabha elections were to be held now. The poll claims the party is gradually gaining ground in the two states.

The BJP had won only nine of UP's 80 Lok Sabha seats and 11 of Bihar's 40 seats in the last general elections.

The poll, conducted from February 4 to 15 across UP and Bihar, in its findings released on Friday said Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal-United's (JD-U's) tally would drop to nine seats from 21 in 2009. The JD-U and BJP were allies in 2009 and the poll says Kumar and his party's popularity has waned since it parted ways with the BJP.

The findings dismiss Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP's) chances in the Hindi heartland, saying the party is likely to win only one seat in UP and none in Bihar. The poll says the AAP has lost its ground since January. An opinion poll conducted last month said the AAP could win two seats in UP, its lone seat coming from western UP.

The BJP would welcome the poll's findings as the party needs to improve its performance in UP and Bihar drastically from the 2009 elections for any realistic chance of forming the government at the Centre. The two states together send 120 MPs to the Lok Sabha. It was the BJP's excellent performances in both the 1998 and 1999 elections in these two states that enabled it to lead a coalition government at the Centre then. The BJP would need to maximise its tally in these two states to offset its negligible prospects of winning seats in eastern and southern states. The ABP News-Nielsen survey conducted in January predicted 35 seats for the BJP in UP. The poll claims the party has gained five seats in the previous month and is likely to get 33 per cent of the votes.

The poll results said both the Samajwadi Party (SP), which currently has a government in Lucknow, and the Bahujan Samaj Party are likely to lose ground in UP. The SP is unlikely to repeat either its 2009 performance or its good show in 2012 Assembly election when it got an absolute majority in the Assembly.

The poll predicts 14 seats for the SP, down from 23 in 2009 and 13 for the BSP. The BSP won 20 seats in 2009. The BJP, according to the poll, would gain both in eastern and western UP. The poll says the BJP would win 16 of the 28 seats in western UP and 17 of eastern UP's 36 seats. Eastern UP is considered the SP's stronghold where the poll gives the party only five seats but the BSP nine seats. It says the BSP has gained its vote share in eastern UP over the past month.

The Congress, which had surprised many by winning 21 seats in 2009, would get only 11 seats together with the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), which had won five seats in 2009. The two parties had fought the 2012 Assembly election in an alliance and had performed poorly.

In Bihar, the poll predicts 21 of the 40 seats for the BJP and only nine for the JD-U. It says the Congress, Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal and Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party's alliance could win as many as 14 seats. However, the three parties will not fare well if they fail to forge a seat adjustment.

The opinion poll was conducted across 20 Parliamentary seats of UP with 4,537 respondents and across 10 constituencies in Bihar with 2,272 respondents.