Shah says BJP has already cross majority mark, Modi claims party to get over 300 seats

BJP president Amit Shah on Wednesday exuded confidence that his party has already crossed the majority mark after sixth phase of Lok Sabha polls and took a swipe at opposition parties over their proposed meeting, saying they may meet to elect a leader of opposition.

"You (media) keep asking me how many seats we will win. I have travelled across the country and looking at the popular response, I am fully confident that the BJP after fifth and sixth phase of the elections has crossed the majority figure. It is going to cross 300 after the seventh phase and the NDA under Prime Minister Narendra Modi will form the government again," he told a press conference here. The seventh and last phase of the elections for 543 Lok Sabha seats is due on May 19. A party needs to win 272 seats for a simple majority. The BJP had won 282 in 2014.

Mocking the proposed meeting of opposition leaders and the move by some regional parties like TRS to form a federal front, Shah said such meetings do not affect the BJP whose seats, he added, are not going to come down.They may meet to elect a leader of opposition, he said, adding that results even this time may not give any party enough number of seats to elect a leader of opposition from its ranks. The Congress, the main opposition party, had won only 44 seats in 2014, less than the minimum 10 per cent of seats a party needs to win to claim the post of the leader of opposition in the LoK Sabha. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in West Bengal today said "the ground is slipping from under the feet" of chief minister Mamata Banerjee whose frustration at the public support for the BJP in the state will help his party form a government with overwhelming majority.

The West Bengal Chief Minister is afraid of the Lok Sabha election results and "scared to see her own shadow", Modi said at an election rally here, a day after violence at BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata. A bust of social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was also desecrated and BJP and Trinamool Congress have blamed each other for the violence.

"The reason for organised attacks on BJP rallies in West Bengal is your fear. Didi, your nervousness and the public support which BJP is getting in the state has assured me that Bengal will ensure that BJP crosses 300 in these elections," Modi said at an election rally here.

"All the surveys are giving BJP a full majority on its own, but Didi after seeing your frustration and the support from the people of Bengal, I'm saying that Bengal will help us win more than 300 seats," he said.

West Bengal will see polling for nine seats of the state's 42 seats on May 19 in the seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha elections. The counting of votes will begin on May 23.