Change in Bengal, close fight in Kerala, Tamil Nadu: Exit polls

suchithkc




New Delhi, May 10 : Election surveys by three television channels Tuesday gave a unanimous clean sweep for Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, predicting the end of the Communist rule, while they were divided on the outcome in Tamil Nadu, Assam and Kerala. Polls conducted during the polling in the states over the past month by Headlines Today-ORG, CNN-IBN-The Week-CSDS and Star Ananda-Nielsen gave a two-thirds majority to the Trinamool Congress-Congress combine in the 294-seat West Bengal assembly. If this poll prediction turns correct, this would mark the overthrow of a 34-year-long Communist regime in power since 1977. Headlines Today-ORG gave the Trinamool Congress-led combine anywhere between 210 and 220 seats, and pegged the Left Front's strength in the assembly to just between 65 and 70 seats. The television channel gave other parties between 10 and 15 members in the new assembly. The CNN-IBN-The Week-CSDS and Star Ananda-Nielsen polls almost concurred with the Headlines Today-ORG prediction. The CNN-IBN-The Week-CSDS assessed Trinamool Congress-led combine would get between 222 to 234 seats, with the Left Front getting 60 to 72 seats. The Star Ananda-Nielsen poll gave Trinamool 225 and the Left 60 seats, with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) getting three seats and others six seats. In Kerala, though, the CNN-IBN-The Week-CSDS and Headlines Today-ORG polls were divided on the outcome. While the former gave the state to the CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) with a slender margin, the latter predicted a comfortable victory for the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). The CNN-IBN-The Week-CSDS polls said LDF could win between 69 and 77 seats and the UDF between 63 and 71 seats out of the 140 seats in the Kerala assembly. The Headlines Today-ORG polls, on the other hand, said UDF would win between 85 and 92 seats against LDF's tally of 48 to 55 seats. Tamil Nadu, two channels predicted, would be a close call. Headlines-ORG said the DMK-led alliance would bag between 115 and 130 seats in the 234-seat assembly, while the opposition AIADMK-led alliance may get between 105 and 120 seats, which would mean the DMK will return to power. But the CNN-IBN-The Week-CSDS poll said the AIADMK would bag between 120 and 132 seats to defeat the ruling DMK, which would poll between 102 and 114 seats. The two polls, however, concurred on Assam throwing up a hung assembly with the Congress having a lead over the Asom Gana Parishad and BJP.