Cong-NCP to win in Maharashtra, Cong in Haryana: Survey

An opinion poll conducted on the October 13 assembly polls predicts that the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine will emerge as the biggest alliance in Maharashtra while the ruling Congress is likely to win in Haryana with a safe margin.

The survey, conducted by Star News television channel and Nielsen, with 23,122 voters in Maharashtra and 7,664 voters in Haryana, predicts that in Maharashtra, Congress will get 88 seats while giving 52 to the NCP, 63 to Shiv Sena and 55 to BJP. Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena will get 12 seats in the 288-member assembly, it said.

In Haryana, the opinion poll gives 65 seats to Congress, eight each to the Indian National Lok Dal and the Haryana Janhit Congress, five to the Bahujan Samaj Party and only two seats to the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 90-member assembly.

In Maharashtra, price rise, unemployment and plight of farmers are major issues. Nearly 53 per cent of those polled said Ashok Chavan was a good chief minister. Interestingly, the survey shows that 37 per cent feel Vilasrao Deshmukh was the best chief minister, 19 per cent support Chavan, 18 per cent are with Manohar Joshi while 17 per cent support Sushil Kumar Shinde.

At least 18 per cent feel Deshmukh would be the best future chief minister. In Haryana, 73 per cent of the respondents felt Bhupinder Singh Hooda is a good chief minister while 70 per cent said the performance of his government has been good. Nearly 68 per cent feel that Hooda should be made the chief minister again.