The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is set to retain power in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls but with a reduced seat share, an opinion poll by Times Now x Polstrat said.
Although the Yogi Adityanath government will manage to come back to power in the state with a clear majority, its seat share is expected to fall by 67-73 seats.
The BJP came to the power with 312 seats in the 403-member UP Assembly in 2017.
The figure could reduce to 239-245 in the 2022 elections, indicates the opinion poll.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) is likely to stage a comeback in the state by increasing its vote share by 11.28 per cent to 33.1 per cent in 2022.
The survey also indicates that the SP will be able to secure a more than two-fold increase in its seat share.
The SP, which bagged 47 seats in the 2017 assembly election, is expected to secure 119-125 seats, becoming the second largest party in the Assembly.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is expected to experience a fall in vote share of about 9.83 per cent.
The BSP is expected to increase its tally of seats from 19 in 2017 to 28-32 in 2022.
The Indian National Congress (INC) will manage to marginally increase its vote share from 6.25 per cent to 7.9 per cent. However, the party's tally of seats could increase or decrease from seven seats in 2017 to five-eight seats in 2022.
The opinion poll also showcases that 'others' who managed to secure 18 seats along with a vote share of 10.03 per cent in 2017 are likely to experience a downfall in both vote and seat share. The poll predicts that 'Others' will only secure 0-1 seats with a vote share of 4.7 per cent in 2022.
The opinion poll was conducted from November 6 to 10 with a sample size of 9,000.
The survey was conducted using the Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) interactive system where respondents can carry out interviews on the phone and the data collected is verified by the on-ground team.
The sampling method used ensures that all of Uttar Pradesh is covered, both geographically and demographically to ensure equal representation.
The margin of error for the data is three per cent with a confidence interval of 95 per cent.
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