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NDA's lead will increase after third round, says DD exit poll

The third phase of polling to the Lok Sabha is expected to improve the lead of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance over the Congress and its allies, according to an exit poll telecast by Doordarshan tonight.

The NDA is projected to win 191 of the 344 seats for which elections have been held so far, while the Congress and its allies are expected to get 126.

According to the exit poll conducted by Development and Research Services, both alliances are expected to improve upon their performances in the 1998 election. While the NDA is likely to gain 23 seats, the Congress and its allies may benefit by eight seats.

Effectively, however, it means that the Congress and its allies will gain 10 seats in the third phase as against a loss of five seats for the NDA. At the end of the second phase, the NDA was projected to have gained 28 seats while the Congress and its allies had lost two.

Today's exit poll was conducted in 26 of the 76 constituencies covered in the third phase. Random sampling was adopted, covering systematically 15 selected polling stations in each constituency. The reaction of every fifth voter was fed into a computer with special software to project the overall result, pollster G V L Narasimha Rao of DRS said.

Of the 76 constituencies that went to the polls today, as many as 46 are expected to return nominees of the NDA and 21 of the Congress and its partners. Regional and other parties are likely to get just nine seats, taking their total tally in the first three phases to 27, a net loss of 31 seats as compared to 1998.

But another exit poll conducted by a private television channel, Jain TV, gave the NDA 54 of the 76 seats and 11 to the Congress. Thus, according to Jain TV, the NDA will get 193 seats in the first three phases while the Congress will get only 103.

Jain TV's projection, however, is for only 334 of the 344 seats covered so far. The exit poll was not conducted in nine Union territories in the first round and in Baramulla.

According to Jain TV's projections, the NDA is likely to lose four seats while the Congress and its allies may lose one seat in the third phase. Overall, the NDA is likely to gain 23 seats in the first three phases while the Congress may lose 36 seats.

Jain TV is owned by Dr J K Jain, a BJP politician who was a member of the tenth Lok Sabha.

According to the DRS poll, in terms of vote share, the BJP-led combine is estimated to get 45 per cent (a gain of 6 per cent), the Congress and its allies 37 per cent (+5) and others 18 per cent (-11 per cent).

While good performance was the deciding factor for 27 per cent of the voters covered by the exit poll, 7 per cent voted on local issues, 19 per cent for stability, 16 per cent on issues concerning agriculture and 18 per cent on other matters.

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