New Delhi, May 22: The Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance can be expected to win around 331 Lok Sabha seats if elections were held today, a survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies for ABP News suggests.

While this represents a marginal fall of five seats from the NDA's 2014 tally of 336, the United Progressive Alliance will boost its score from 60 to 104, mainly because of gains by Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad in Bihar and the DMK in Tamil Nadu, the survey says.

Aired by ABP News television channel today, the survey was conducted between May 1 and 15 among 11,373 respondents at 584 locations across 147 parliamentary constituencies.

The survey indicates the BJP will gain 16 seats in eastern India, from a cluster of 142 seats in Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Sikkim and the Northeast.

Sanjay Kumar, director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, told The Telegraph that the BJP was likely to gain in Odisha, where Naveen Patnaik's Biju Janata Dal had won 20 of the 21 seats in 2014.

"There is a mild surge for the BJP in Bengal but it remains to be seen how it translates into seats. In Odisha, there is almost a wave in favour of the BJP," Kumar said.

But in Bihar, he said, the BJP votes had dipped a little even from the 2015 Assembly election levels, when a rout had spoiled the party's sterling show from the state in 2014.

According to the survey, BJP vote shares have fallen in Jharkhand but risen in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, although Kumar did not want to speculate how this might impact seat tallies.

"The NDA is not losing the seats it won in 2014 while the UPA is set to make gains in southern India, particularly Tamil Nadu, because of the DMK's rising strength," Kumar said.

The DMK is expected to gain from the votes lost by the AIADMK factions following Jayalalithaa's death and the subsequent split in her party.

"We did not see the Congress making any significant gains," Kumar said.

Overall, the mood-of-the-nation survey shows the NDA winning 116 seats from northern India, 105 from western India, 71 from the east and 39 from the south.

Participating in the ABP News programme, Bihar BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said: "In the 2019 parliamentary polls, the iconic figure of Prime Minister Modi will demolish the ruling coalition in Bihar."

He declined to comment on the possibility of Nitish returning to the NDA fold.