New Delhi, May 28 (DC): Heading into the election year, the BJP is supremely confident of victory in 2019, and sees its tally going up in many states like Telangana, AP, West Bengal and even Kerala. The party plans no pre-poll alliances in the Telugu states.

The BJP feels the coming together of Opposition parties will be of little consequence as it is mostly a grouping of regional parties that do not have any influence outside their states.

Against this mood, the BJP made light of a recent survey by Lokniti-CSDS which said it was losing ground and popularity.

At an off-the-record interaction with non-Delhi based newspapers at one of the gatherings to celebrate four years in power, a top leader in the BJP shrugged off the survey and said that it was impossible to predict the mood of the nation one year in advance of the elections. He said the BJP had set its mind on doing a lot more before the polls came around.

When it was pointed out that the three states going to polls later this year — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh — did not really have a year, he said he was confident that the BJP would retain the states.

He agreed that the party faced the anti-incumbency factor in MP. “But it was predicted in the last elections as well that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan would lose but he returned victorious,” he said. On the unity of the NDA, after the exit of the Telugu Desam, the BJP believes there is nothing to worry.