UPA leaders are confident of retaining power for a third successive time due to a division in the Opposition and the inability of the regional parties to run the country. They are also indicating that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh could get a third term although some Congress leaders are aspiring for the top post.
“Yes, our numbers might come down... the Congress may get between 150 to 160 Lok Sabha seats, less than the 2009 elections. But the UPA would emerge as the largest single coalition. Besides, we will get support of at least three Opposition parties after the polls. They could be either the BSP or Samajwadi Party, AIADMK or DMK and the Trinamul Congress or the Left,” said a Union minister.
The Lalu Prasad Yadav-led party cannot back the BJP-led NDA. And if the BJP projects Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, then both the Janata Dal(U) and the RJD will support the UPA like the SP-BSP have been backing from outside since 2004.
The BJP has failed to emerge as an alternate to the Congress at the national level. It had lost Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh and will lose Karnataka. It might retain Madhya Pradesh and could win the Rajasthan Assembly elections to be held by the end of this year.
The Congress can get Chhattisgarh back if it takes corrective steps. It will lose Andhra Pradesh but retain seats in Maharashtra with the help of the NCP, UPA insiders claim.
The BJP has been lacking political space in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tripura.
“And Narendra Modi’s projection as the PM candidate will ensure that the Trinamul Congress, Biju Janata Dal, the YSR Congress Party and the TDP will stay away from the NDA,” they said.