New Delhi, May 12 (Reuters): Narendra Modi is set to become India's next prime minister, exit polls showed on Monday, with his opposition party and its allies forecast to sweep to a parliamentary majority in the world's biggest ever election.
Indian elections are notoriously hard to call, however, due to the country's diverse electorate and a parliamentary system in which local candidates hold great sway. Pre-election opinion polls and post-voting exit polls both have a patchy record.
Modi, of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has electrified the lengthy contest with a media-savvy campaign that has hinged on vows to kickstart India's economy and create jobs.
Yet much depends on Modi winning enough seats to form a stable government that will allow him to push through his promised reforms.
India's staggered voting, spread over five weeks to reach the country's 815 million voters and move security forces around its varied terrain, ended at 1800 IST (1230 GMT) on Monday. Results are due on May 16.
Research group C-Voter predicted 289 seats for the National Democratic Alliance headed by the BJP, with just 101 seats for the alliance led by the Congress party - which would be the ruling party's worst ever result.
Another poll, by Cicero for the India Today group, showed the NDA hitting between 261 and 283 seats. A majority of 272 is needed to form a government, although that is often achieved with outside support from regional parties.
Several national exit polls over-estimated the BJP's seat share in the last two general elections in 2004 and 2009. The ruling Congress party went on to form coalition governments on both occasions.
"We will only know if this 'Modi wave' has really happened after the election results," said Praveen Rai, a political analyst at the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), who published a report on exit polls last month. "It still might be more of a media wave, a manufactured wave."
CSDS has put together a survey canvassing voters at least a day after they cast their ballots that was due to be released by the CNN-IBN news channel later on Monday.
Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state and a crucial political battleground, is particularly tricky for pollsters to forecast because it is a caste-sensitive state where some voters are afraid to speak frankly about who they chose, said Rai.
C-Voter said its poll was based on a sample of 166,901 randomly selected respondents in all 543 seats up for election. The pollster said its margin of error is \-3 percent at a national level.
India's stock markets have in recent days hit record highs on hopes that the exit polls would show the BJP and its allies winning a majority.
The Nifty breached the psychologically key level of 7,000 points for the first time on Monday, breaking a record high of 6,871.35 that it hit on Friday.
The benchmark BSE Sensex also hit an all-time high and the rupee rallied to its strongest levels in 10 months on Monday.
Should Modi fall short of a majority when the results come in on May 16, he will need to strike a coalition deal with some of India's increasingly powerful regional parties.
Modi is a polarising figure whose critics accuse him of turning a blind eye to religious riots in 2002 in the state of Gujarat, where he is chief minister. More than 1,000 people -most of them Muslims - were killed in the violence.
Modi denies the accusations and a Supreme Court inquiry found no evidence to prosecute him.
IANS adds
The BJP-led NDA coalition is poised to return to power by winning a majority in the Lok Sabha, ending a decade of Congress-led UPA rule, exit polls said Monday after the general election ended.
Three exit polls projected the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance between 272 and 289 seats in the 545-member Lok Sabha where two members are nominated by the government.
The India Today-CICERO exit poll and the ABP-Nielsen survey predicted 272 or more seats for the NDA, in which the BJP is the dominant partner.
While the India Today-CICERO gave the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) 115 seats and other parties 156, the ABP-Nielsen tally for the Congress grouping was 110.
Projections by India TV-CVoter put the NDA on top with 289 seats and the UPA far behind with 101. Other groups were projected to get 148 seats and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) five seats nationally.
Going by the projections, the Congress - India's oldest political party - could end up with its lowest tally ever in the Lok Sabha, perhaps in just two figures.
The BJP, led by its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, said the exit polls were on expected lines. Its leaders insisted that the party was sure to get a comfortable majority in the Lok Sabha.
"Wherever we went during campaigning, it was clear that people wanted a change (in government)," party leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said. "They also wanted Modi to lead the country."
A dispirited Congress did not accept defeat, but a 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 UPA 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, from where Modi is fighting one of his two Lok Sabha elections. 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.
A fourth exit poll, on CNN-IBN, 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 ruling AIADMK was projected to win 22-28 of the 39 seats, followed by the DMK (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.