Thruvananthapuram, Jan 1 (IANS): Kerala's ruling CPI-M's state secretariat and committee, which is meeting here, on Friday assessed that the party-headed Left Democratic Front has an edge in 98 of the state's 140 seats for the ensuing Assembly elections.

The party has found that the Congress-led United Democratic Front has a lead in 41 seats while the BJP-led NDA has an edge in only one seat. The assessment is based on the calculations and projections in the seats the party has won in the recent local body elections.

Party leaders, who participated in the meeting, stated that the BJP had created major hype in the elections but it could not do anything in the electoral hustings. The CPI-M, in its analysis, found that the BJP is growing in the state and its expansion in left bastions like Pandalam, Varkala and Attingal was astonishing. The party will be soon be constituting a committee to have a detailed study on its grass root connect.

The CPI-M state leadership has also assessed that the party and the LDF has performed extremely well in the recent local body elections and that all the allegations against the government was rejected by the people in toto.

The most powerful CPI-M body also has assessed that the Congress-led UDF does not have much ground in the state, though it found that in certain UDF pockets, the Left did not perform well.

The CPI-M and the left front also assessed that locally powerful leaders and their active presence has helped the party and the front to easily romp home.

The BJP has done extremely well in the recent local body polls with its tally of local body members increasing by more than 350.