Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party could lose a quarter of its seats in  parliament with an electoral wipeout in the most populous state, if the Congress Party were to join an opposition alliance there, an opinion poll showed yesterday.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party won 282 seats in the 545-seat parliament in the last election, including 73 out of the 80 seats from Uttar Pradesh, a state of more than 200mn people.
But the India Today-Karvy Insights Mood of the Nation poll forecast that the number of seats held by the BJP in the state could plummet to just five, if Congress were to join an alliance set up by other opposition groups.
The next general election is due by May.
The shock poll comes after the BJP lost elections in five state assemblies late last year, including three that it had controlled, largely because of rural anger about low farm incomes tied to weak crop prices.
To achieve such a wipeout in Uttar Pradesh, the opposition parties would have to agree to field a single candidate in each constituency, according to the poll.
The Congress has so far ruled that out, although even without Congress the other opposition parties would still inflict a sizeable defeat on the BJP.
An alliance of three Uttar Pradesh parties — Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal — could win 58 seats without Congress, the poll showed.
BJP and its ally in the state, Apna Dal, would win 18 seats in that scenario and Congress would have four.