World's largest democracy all set for Lok Sabha battle

Ranged against both the UPA and NDA are regional parties with devoted pockets of support such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (Uttar Pradesh), Biju Janata Dal (Orissa), the DMK and AIADMK (Tamil Nadu), the Trinamool Congress (West Bengal) and the Janata Dal-United and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (Bihar).

All of them could play a major role in the event of another hung parliament.

The Bharatiya Janata Party is supremely confident. "We are very sure the BJP will alone get up to 250 seats," its spokesman Prakash Javadekar told IANS. He felt the NDA tally might touch "290 or so".

Any party or coalition will need 272 seats to form a government.

The Congress feels that pollsters predicting its defeat will be proved wrong again -- as it happened in the 2004 and 2009 elections.