The Front could win 233 to 243 seats in the 294-member state assembly as against 199 it had won last time in 2001 while main rival Trinamool Congress-BJP combine is likely to finish with 24 to 30 seats, a sharp drop from the 60 seats it had won five years ago, said the poll conducted by Centre For the Study of Developing Societies. Congress is projected to get 24 to 30 seats, retaining almost the same strength of 26 the party had secured in the last election, it said.
The opinion poll covering 3,535 voters spread across 224 locations in 56 constituencies was conducted between April 1 and 7. The poll estimates that the Left Front's vote share could surpass its best performance in the 1987 assembly elections when it had secured 52.9 per cent votes.
After adjusting for over-reporting in favour of Left Front, it is estimated that 54 per cent of the respondents would have voted for the ruling Front had the elections been held in the first week of April when the survey was held, according to the poll.
If the same trend continued till the day of elections, Trinamool Congress and BJP-combine would end up a distant second with only 27 per cent votes, representing a decline of nine percentage points from combined votes secured by the two parties contesting separately, according to the poll.
Congress looks like a poor third though its vote share could go up from eight per cent last time to 12 per cent in the coming elections, said the poll adding that in real terms, it means a fall from the 14 per cent votes the party had secured in the Lok Sabha elections two years ago.
The Left Front has always won two-thirds majority in the state assembly elections ever since it winning streak started in 1977. The Front's best performance has so far been in 1987 when it won 251 seats and secured 52.9 per cent votes.
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