ABP News Survey: In Uttar Pradesh, BSP chief Mayawati can alter BJP's poll math for 2019 Lok Sabha elections

Uttar Pradesh which sends the maximum members (80) to the Parliament holds the key for both the NDA and the UPA for 2019 elections. One of the reasons the BJP-led NDA secured a landslide victory in 2014 Lok Sabha elections was that it had swept Uttar Pradesh by winning 71 out of 80 seats.

BSP chief Maywati. (PIC/FB @BehenMayawati)

NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh which sends the maximum members (80) to the Parliament holds the key for both the NDA and the UPA for 2019 elections. One of the reasons the BJP-led NDA secured a landslide victory in 2014 general elections was that it had swept Uttar Pradesh by winning 71 out of 80 seats. In its road to replicate the previous poll performance, the BJP faces at least two roadblocks -the SP and the BSP. It's not that these two parties were not there in 2014 but because they have found a winning mantra against the saffron party and that's by getting united. This formula worked for them in Lok Sabha by-polls to Gorakhpur, the bastion of chief minister Yogi Adityanath, and Phulpur, stronghold of deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, where the Bua-Bhatija combine humiliated the ruling BJP. Later in the Kairana by-elections, the SP-BSP alliance again crushed the saffron party. Now, according to a survey conducted by ABP News and C-Voter, if Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav form a pre-poll alliance, the NDA will suffer a huge loss to its seat tally. The SP-BSP combine in Uttar Pradesh will be victorious on whopping 42 seats and the NDA will slid to 36, bearing a loss of 35 seats compared to 2014, if Lok Sabha elections were held today. The Congress-led UPA will see only two of its candidates winning. In another scenario, the Congress onboard with the BSP and SP will dent the NDA further and reduce the saffron coalition to mere 24 seats; and the 'Mahagathbandhan', as it's called, will get 56 seats. However, if Mayawati to contest the battle 2019 alone, then the NDA is slated to snatch the lion’s share of 70 seats while Congress may get just two and the Others, including the SP, to get eight in total. Akhilesh Yadav had already said his party will join an anti-BJP alliance for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls even if it would require taking a few steps backward. Mayawati, however, has maintained her party will go for an alliance only if gets a respectable share of seats, a glance of which we have seen when she dumped the Congress and decided to contest alone in upcoming Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan assembly elections. Also, in Chhattisgarh, she joined hands with Congress rebel Ajit Jogi's outfit. It may be recalled that the SP and the Congress had joined hands in the last assembly elections, but the alliance failed miserably to take on the BJP. The SP-Congress coalition faced a rout and could only win 54 seats and the BJP came to power by winning 325 seats.