New UP Survey: Hung Assembly, BJP Single Largest Party And Rahul Leading His Party To A Drubbing

The Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls which are less than six months away is likely to throw up a hung Assembly with the BJP emerging as the single largest party with 170 to 183 seats.

An India Today-Axis opinion poll found that Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party, reeling from a series of high-profile defections to the BJP, will bag between 115 and 124 seats. Battered by intra-clan feuds, the Samajwadi party is likely to win between 94 and 103 seats. The Congress, despite Rahul Gandhi's 'kisan yatra' which the party claims has generated a lot of support, will win just 8 to 12 seats in the 403-member Assembly.

However, most of the respondents (31 per cent) said Mayawati would make the best Chief Minister, while 27 per cent preferred incumbent Akhilesh Yadav, followed by 18 per cent supporting Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, 14 per cent supporting BJP's Yogi Adityanath, and just one percent supporting Congress' CM nominee Sheila Dixit.

The survey found that the BJP is being increasingly backed by the non-Yadav OBCs and the upper castes. The survey, conducted by a team of 60 from September 5 to October 5, interviewed 22,231 respondents in the 403 Assembly constituencies.