Ahead of vote count, NDA gets together for dinner

New Delhi: Two days to go for the counting of votes for the national election, BJP chief Amit Shah is touching base with the allies in the National Democratic Alliance, with a special dinner on Tuesday night.

The dinner comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah met the Union ministers at the BJP headquarters in Delhi in the evening.

The dinner at Delhi's Ashoka Hotel - hosted by Amit Shah -- is to double up as a strategy session, even though Sunday's exit polls predicted a comfortable victory for the BJP.

The dinner is attended by most NDA leaders, many of whom arrived at the national capital in the morning itself.

The guest list includes the BJP's Punjab ally, Akali leader Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Badal; Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, Ram Vilas Paswan and his son Chirag Paswan; AIADMK's E Palaniswamy and O Pannerselvam, Apna Dal leader Anupriya Patel and Ramdas Athawale.

Twelve of 14 exit polls predicted that the NDA will get full majority with seats ranging from 282 to 365. An aggregate of exit polls predicted the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will win 302 seats and the Congress and its allies 122.

A party or an alliance needs 271 seats to form the government, as the elections were held on 542 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats.