Cong will emerge as single largest party: Opinion poll

The Congress, which had secured 37 per cent vote in 2013 to win 122 seats, is likely to retain its vote share but it will win less number of seats. The Congress is projected to win 90-101 seats with the same vote percentage.

According to the opinion poll, BJP will gain in terms of vote share but that would not be enough to form the government in the state and oust the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government. The opinion poll results show that 35 per cent of the voters (based on 27,919 interviews) will vote for the saffron party. The BJP is expected to improve its seat tally from 50 (after merger of KJP and BSRCP) to 78-86 as per the poll.

The Janata Dal (Secular), which has entered into an alliance with Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), will poll fewer votes than what it did in 2013. The poll predicts that the JD (S)-BSP alliance will get 19 per cent of votes. The party had won 40 seats in 2013 and is expected to win 34-43 seats this time.

In the opinion poll conducted between March 17 and April 5 this year, 45 per cent respondents said the Siddharamaiah-led Congress government should get a chance to govern the state for the next five years. In case of a coalition government, 39 per cent of respondents said they would like to see the JD (S) tying up with the Congress to form the next government. Only 29 per cent said the JD (S) should form an alliance with the BJP to form government in the state.

Karnataka will go to polls on May 12 and the results will be declared on May 15. The tenure of the current Karnataka Legislative Assembly will expire on May 28. Out of the 224 constituencies, 173 are reserved for the general category, 36 for the Scheduled Caste (SC) and 15 for the Scheduled Tribe (ST). All electronic voting machines (EVM) will be linked to VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail).

The 2008 assembly election in Karnataka was won by BJP comfortably with 110 seats, whereas the 2013 assembly election was swept by the Congress, who won 122 seats. An interesting fact about Karnataka is that between 1978 and 2008, parties ruling at the Centre failed to take lead in the state. However, the Congress which was in power at the Centre in 2013, broke the jinx and was emerged victorious in Karnataka as well. Within a year, the BJP under Narendra Modi's leadership took over the reins in New Delhi with a spectacular margin.