Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Lal Krishna Advani and the party’s prime ministerial candidate and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi are surrounded by bodyguards as they attend the inauguration of a public park in the western city of Ahmedabad yesterday.


Agencies/New Delhi


The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has picked up support since naming Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as its candidate for prime minister last month, but would need new allies to form the next government, an opinion poll showed yesterday.
Modi, three times chief minister of the western state, was put forward by the main opposition party in August, cementing the rise of a leader who many think is capable of turning round India’s economy but who remains tainted by deadly religious riots that broke out on his watch in 2002.
The ruling Congress Party has led a coalition government for nearly a decade but is headed for its worst electoral performance since at least 1999 as it battles allegations of corruption, the survey showed.
The survey, conducted by pollsters Team Cvoter for two television networks, forecasts the BJP will pick up 162 seats. The last Cvoter survey conducted in August, before Modi was named, forecast the party would get 130 seats, up from the 116 it holds now.
The Congress tally would drop to 102 seats from the 206 it now holds in the 545-member Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, if voting in the election were to reflect the poll, conducted for the India TV and Times Now networks.
The National Democratic Alliance coalition led by the BJP is expected to win 186 seats, meaning the BJP would have to find new allies among regional parties if it were to form a government. To rule, a party needs the support of 272 members of parliament.
The BJP and Congress are India’s largest national parties but political power has shifted in recent years to smaller regional or state-level parties, making them kingmakers during coalition building and giving them more influence over policy.
The world’s largest democracy is due to hold its largest ever general election by May.
Elections are notoriously hard to predict in India, which has very complex demographics.
The Cvoter study was based on a national sample of 24,284 randomly selected respondents. The data was collected between August 16 and October 15 - the period four weeks before and four weeks after Modi was declared as the BJP’s candidate.
Meanwhile, the BJP has pulled out all stops to make the maiden rally of its prime ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh on October 19 a success.
And the spade work for the rally in Kanpur, party sources say, has been “unprecedented.”
A 100ft-long and 30ft-wide main stage will hold the national leadership of the BJP including Modi and party president Rajnath Singh, while two side stages are being erected to accommodate the state leadership and other office bearers, BJP city chief Surendra Maithani said.
Despite hassles in finalisation of the venue, getting the necessary permissions from the district administration and working on security, the state unit of the BJP is working overtime to ensure that detractors take note of Modi’s popularity.
Special teams have been formed to rope in a large number of youngsters and party workers have fanned out in educational and technical institutions including the Chatrapati Sahuji Maharaj University, its affiliates and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) to invite students to hear Modi and his plans for a vibrant India.