For first time, an opinion poll gives NDA a clear majority Big Wins In UP, Maha, Bihar, MP Predicted

New Delhi: For the first time in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, a poll on Monday predicted a clear majority for any pre-poll alliance, with NDTV projecting that the NDA would get 275 seats in the 543-member House. This is 16 seats more than the poll had predicted last month.      The BJP on its own would win 226 seats, the highest tally ever for the party and the best by any party since 1991, the poll done by Hansa Research estimated. The UPA would win just 111 seats, with the Congress sinking to its lowest tally ever of 92 seats, it said.      The NDA's projected victory is based on impressive gains compared to 2009 in Uttar Pradesh (a gain of 41 seats), Maharashtra (17), Rajasthan (17), Bihar (12), Andhra Pradesh (12) and Madhya Pradesh (10). In just these six states, it stands to gain 109 seats. In most other states too, the Narendra Modi-led alliance is projected to gain, though by more modest amounts.      The only major states in which the NDA could do worse than five years ago are Karnataka (a loss of seven seats), Chhattisgarh (two) and West Bengal (one), according to the NDTV poll.      In contrast, the UPA is predicted to lose seats viz-a-viz 2009 in almost every major state, with Andhra Pradesh being the worst case, where the Congress tally could drop from 33 five years ago to just six this time.      Barring Karnataka and Chhattisgarh, the only states where the UPA stands to gain are Assam (a gain of two seats) and Bihar, where the gain of six is really only because the RJD is now part of the alliance unlike in 2009.  'Soren wanted 50L for CIL CMD post'      Former coal ministers Shibu Soren and Dasari Narayan Rao "pestered" a top Coal India Ltd official for payments and demanded Rs 50 lakh from him in return for being appointed as CIL's CMD, former coal secretary P C Parakh has written in his book "Crusader Or Conspirator? Coalgate And Other Truths". P 7 Vinod Rai defers memoirs till June      The Congress, which is reeling under disclosures by the PM's former media advisor Sanjaya Baru and ex-coal secretary P C Parakh, can breathe a sigh of relief with former CAG Vinod Rai deciding to defer his memoirs till the polls, sparing the party of what could have been a triple whammy. P 7 Poll: TMC third largest with 30 seats T he largest parties after the BJP and Congress would bethe TMC with 30 seats, the AIADMK with 22, SP with 14 and BJD with 13. The DMK, with its allies is likely to win 14 seats and the Left 22. AAP is projected to win just one seat in Delhi and  none elsewhere, at least in the states for which details were available, which included all those with seven seats or more.      None of these parties, however, will be of much significance if the poll's predictions come true, since the NDA will not need any post-poll allies to form government.