Projections say Conservative party will win 316 seats, ahead of Labour with 239 seats and the SNP with 58 seats.Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative party is on course to return to power in the UK, an exit poll has projected.

The exit poll, released as polls closed at 21:00 GMT on Thursday night, projected that the Conservative party would win 316 seats, with Labour winning 239, the Scottish National Party (SNP) winning 58 and the Liberal Democrats winning 10 seats.

Cameron said his Conservative party’s policies in the last government had been vindicated by the result. “Some people say there’s only one opinion poll that counts and that’s the one on election day, and I don’t think that’s ever been truer than tonight,” he said referring to polls that had put his party neck and neck with the opposition Labour Party.

“This has been a very strong night for the Conservative Party,” he added.

Labour leader Ed Miliband, speaking after he retained his Doncaster North seat, said he was “disappointed” in the result. “It’s clearly been a very disappointing and difficult night for the Labour Party, we haven’t made the gains we wanted in England and Wales, and in Scotland we’ve seen a surge of nationalism,” he said.

“I am deeply sorry for what has happened,”

The right-wing UK Independence Party was projected to win two seats. If correct, the projections showed that the Conservatives would still be left short of the 326 seats required to form a majority government in parliament.

Senior Conservative lawmaker Michael Gove said the exit poll pointed to a clear win for his party. “If it is right, then it means the Conservatives have clearly won this election, and Labour has clearly lost it,” he told the BBC.

Read More: aljazeera