'We will get 272 seats'

After casting his vote, Vajpayee scoffed at realignment efforts by some regional parties.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee voted on Wednesday in his constituency Lucknow in the penultimate round of marathon elections and said he was confident of leading the next Government.

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The 79-year-old prime minister visited a polling station at Vishnu Narain college in Lucknow and made his choice by pressing a button on an electronic voting machine.

Vajpayee is seeking re-election from Lucknow for the fifth time since 1996 when he became prime minister of a short-lived government led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

A relaxed-looking Vajpayee later told reporters that his BJP-led coalition government would secure a majority in Parliament's 545-seat elected lower house.

"We should get 272 seats very comfortably. I am confident about that," Vajpayee said, referring to the required Parliamentary majority.

He rejected exit poll predictions of the opposition Congress party narrowing the gap and reiterated a clear win for his multi-party administration.

"I see no difficulties," the prime minister said and scoffed at realignment efforts by a group of regional parties to try to emerge as kingmakers should the four-phased election produce a fractured verdict.

"I don't know on what basis leaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav are talking of a third front,"

Mulayam's exit polls predict is likely to grab as many as 20 of 80 seats up for grabs in the state of Uttar Pradesh.