National Approval Ratings: BJP or Congress? Here's the national picture on who might win the 2019 General elections

The countdown to the make-or-break 2019 Lok Sabha polls is on, and critical assembly polls are also due in five states in the next month. In the context of this, and at the start of a frenetic month of polling, Republic TV-CVoter's National Approval Ratings have shed light on where things would stand if the Lok Sabha polls were to be held today, and the results are the following:

As can be seen, the NDA is projected to fall below the 272-seat majority mark with 261 seats. This is in comparison to the 336 seats the ruling alliance won in the 2014 elections. Meanwhile, the UPA, which was reduced to just 59 seats in 2014, is projected to more than double that seat share to 119, while other parties, many of which may lean one side or the other, are projected to have a combined seat share of 163 seats.

In terms of voteshare, the NDA is projected to hold firm, with a projection of 38.4% votes to 38.5% in 2014. The UPA, meanwhile, is projected to increase its voteshare to 26%, with others projected to get 35.6% of the votes.

In comparison to the National Approval Ratings from a month earlier, the NDA is projected to have seen its seat share fall by 15 seats (from 276 to 261), while the Congress has seen its projection increase from 112 to 119. For the Congress, there has also been a 0.6% gain in its voteshare projection in the space of a month.

READ | All the National Approval Ratings projections state-by-state

In this context, here are the big takeaways from the National Approval Ratings:

• Without the Prime Minister hitting the ground, the predictions as they stand can go any way but the BJP in the simplest scenario is 11 seats away from the halfway mark. 
• Bastions of Mamata Banerjee and regional giants of AIADMK and DMK have managed to restrict the national parties from their home turfs.
• Despite the rhetoric and the focus, the BJP has not been able to make a seat share inroad in Kerala, though it has made a voteshare inroad
• Hasn’t the narrative of the BJP winning only in bipolar contests been crumbled by its slated projections in states like Karnataka, Odisha and Maharashtra? 
• Can these numbers be an effecitve referendum on the Modi wave given the fact that the BJP is predicted to win 261 seats-- that’s right under the majority-- even without their official alliances being announced, let alone the PM hitting the ground campaigning? 
• Is Rahul Gandhi undoubtedly reduced to a piggy-backer in Indian politics given that his UPA is getting only 119 seats as it is 
• While the undecided players are 109 seats away, to take that number as an absolute standing at 163 seats is aunfair because parties like DMK and AIADM will never go together 
• The BJP needs to stitch up its alliances because without alliances that halfway mark can seem just a very close almost