Agencies/New Delhi

An alliance led by Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is set to scrape a majority in general election, a flurry of exit polls indicated yesterday.
Four out the five exit polls published within hours of the end of voting in the world’s biggest election showed the BJP and its partners in the National Democratic Alliance would reach the 272 threshold needed to form a majority coalition in the 543-seat Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament.
Headlines Today, CNN-IBN, CVoter and ABP forecast that the NDA would get between 272 and 289 seats while the Times Now channel put the tally at 249.
An average of the polls gave the NDA just over 273 seats, meaning Modi will have to find new allies if he is to fulfil his pledge to have a stable government.
All the polls forecast massive losses for the ruling Congress, predicting that its share of seats would fall to a record low of 78 after a lacklustre campaign led by party vice president Rahul Gandhi.
The pollsters stressed that the margin of error made a firm prediction impossible and previous polls have proven inaccurate.
Even if Modi and his allies fall short of a majority, the projected results would represent a spectacular rise on the BJP’s showing in the last election in 2009 when it won 116 seats against 206 for Congress.
Modi has already indicated that he is looking to find further allies among a host of regional parties which would give him a much more stable coalition, telling the Times Now television network last week that “the best way to run a country is to take everyone together.”
Many analysts have forecast that Modi will seek to bring Tamil Nadu’s ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party into his coalition, with Times Now predicting that it is line to win 31 seats in the southern state.
The surveys backed forecasts before voting started on April 7 that the BJP and its allies should be able to reach a majority in the Lok Sabha, after a resounding rejection of the Congress and the Gandhi political dynasty.
“The politics of arrogance, dynasty and inheritance is being rejected by the people of India,” BJP spokesman and parliamentarian Ravi Shankar Prasad told a press conference.
“The politics of initiative, hard work and accomplishment is being rewarded.” Other groups were projected to get 148 seats and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) five seats nationally.
A dispirited Congress did not accept defeat, but party leader Rashid Alvi said rising food prices certainly worked against the Congress all across the country.
The exit polls gave the BJP and its allies far more seats than the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance in northern, western and central India. Only some parts of the country’s south held hope for the Congress.
ABP News-Nielsen said the BJP would make huge gains in the populous states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra which together account for 168 crucial Lok Sabha seats.
According to it, the NDA would get 46 of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP and its ally LJP could get 21 of the 40 seats in neighbouring Bihar.
In Maharashtra, the BJP (21) and its ally Shiv Sena (11) were poised to net 32 of the 48 seats, leaving the Congress bruised in all three states.
CNN-IBN poll said the BJP was expected to do unusually well in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu where traditionally it has been weak.
The BJP could win 1-3 of West Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats. The ruling Trinamool Congress could win 25-31, leaving the Left at a distant second (7-11) followed by the Congress (2-4).
In Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK was projected to win 22-28 of the 39 seats, followed by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (7-11) and the BJP (4-6). The Congress would be routed, CNN-IBN said.
The BJP was also ahead of the Congress in Haryana, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, exit polls said.
An exit poll in Karnataka has shown the BJP winning 14 of the 28 Lok Sabha, Congress 10 and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) four.
The survey has also revealed that the AAP, which contested in all 28 seats, failed to make an impact, as it drew blank.
All the exit surveys showed support evaporating for the AAP nation-wide, which became a sensation in December when it swept to power after state elections in New Delhi.
“The way things have been shaping up in the last three days, everybody is saying Modi is losing,” AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal told reporters yesterday.
Voters are thought to have turned against Congress over massive graft scandals, spiralling inflation and a sharp economic slowdown in the last two years.
Despite a decade of high economic growth, a fall to a decade-low of 5.0% has badly hurt the party.  Attention earlier in the day had focused on the sacred city of Varanasi where 63-year-old Modi was standing as a candidate and hoping for a crowning victory on the final day of voting.
In a video message, he paid tribute to the hundreds of thousands who “stood out in the scorching sun for hours to give strength to our democracy” over the last five weeks.
Writing later on his blog, he struck a conciliatory tone, saying that “it is natural for the spirit of bi-partisanship to get temporarily lost in the midst of an election campaign but now is the time to regain it.”
His decision to stand in Varanasi was rich in religious symbolism and seen as reinforcing his Hindu nationalist credentials during a campaign in which he steered clear of his customary hardline rhetoric. The four-time chief minister of Gujarat has campaigned on a platform of clean government and development to revive the economy after 10 years of rule by the Congress.
But he remains a deeply polarising figure over allegations that he failed to curb swiftly the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat which left at least 1,000 people dead shortly after he came to power there.