Storm clouds are fast appraching congress before the general elections next year. The poll battle for 2014 has kicked off with better than expected results for the BJP. Looking at the predictions from the latest poll, BJP is soon becoming a possible big weight, emerging as the single largest party in the upcoming General Assembly Elections. The party has garnered 162 seats compared to Congress' predicted 102.

The UPA is on a downslide, finding only 117 seats while the NDA looked stronger with 186 seats. Nevertheless, even with its supporters, it is too way short off the half-way mark. All this highlights the fact that regional players will once again hold the key to power and will play a decisive role in determining who leads the country.

It would be interesting to see which party takes the leadership, with as many as 240 seats left with other candidates. Also, forming a government next May is turing out be a complicated exercise as many of the parties are mutually incompatible, such as the Trinamool and the Left Front or SP and BSP.

According to a Times Now forecast, “Among the "other" parties, Left Front is projected to get the largest number, 32 seats, followed by BSP with 31 and AIADMK with 28 seats. SP and Trinamool are expected to bag 25 and 23 seats respectively. The split with BJP seems to have hurt the JD(U), which is predicted to see its tally crash from 20 in 2009 to just nine."

AW: Suchorita Dutta Choudhury