The alliance between the JD(S) and Congress in Karnataka will bring down the BJP tally of Lok Sabha seats in the state from 17 to 15, but there will be no sweep by either the alliance or the BJP, according to a Times Now-VMR opinion poll.
Out of the 28 seats in the state, the Congress-JD(S) alliance will win 13 seats says the poll, two more than the total of 11 seats the parties managed to win in 2014. In the last election, the JD(S) and Congress were not in an alliance and while JD(S) won two seats, Congress won 9.
The opinion poll found that the loss in vote share for the combined Congress and JD(S) will be more than 8%. While in 2014, the combined share of votes for the Congress and JD(S) was 51.8%, the vote share is pegged to drop to 43.5% this time.
At the same time, the BJP which secured a vote share of 43% in 2014, is slated to garner 44.3%.
These predictions come after the recent pre-emptive air strikes in Pakistan’s Balakot which political analysts believe has given the ruling BJP an advantage.
According to the poll, the NDA will win 282 seats, while the Congress front will secure 136 seats. Other parties- this includes TMC, SP, BSP, TRS, YSRCP etc- will win 125 seats.
Karnataka goes to polls in two phases on April 18 and April 23.
Udupi-Chikkamagalur, Hassan, Dakshina Kannada, Chitradurga, Tumakuru, Mandya, Mysuru-Kodagu, Chamarajanagar, Bengaluru Rural, Bengaluru South, Bengaluru North, Chickkaballapur and Kolar will go to polls on April 18. And on April 23, seats of Chikkodi, Belagavi, Bagalkot, Vijayapura, Gulbarga, Raichur, Bidar, Koppal, Ballari, Haveri, Dharwad, Uttara Kannada, Davangere and Shivamogga will go to polls.
Source: The News Minute