New Delhi, June 1: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance is projected to win a majority in the six week-long staggered general elections that concluded on Saturday.
A clutch of exit polls predicted a clean sweep for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi heading for a hat trick.
At least four Exit polls, NewsX-D-Dynamics, Jan Ki Baat, Republic Bharat-MATRIZE and Republic TV-PMARQ, have projected over 350 seats for NDA, while the Congress party-led INDIA alliance would manage to secure only 125-161 seats.
The BJP had won 303 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. NDA’s tally was 353 in the last general election.
In the 543-member Lok Sabha, a party or alliance needs 272 seats to get a simple majority.
Before the exit polls were aired by various media houses, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge held a meeting with INDIA alliance partners and claimed that the grouping would win more than 295 seats. He said that he had arrived at the number following feedback from the ground and inputs from alliance partners.
In the past, exit polls have on several occasions proved wrong. For instance, most of the exit polls failed to get the pulse of the voters in the last Karnataka state assembly elections.
The country’s largest state Uttar Pradesh is slated to go to the NDA, with the alliance predicted to win more than 65 out of 80 seats, according to a News18 exit poll.
The Congress-led INDIA alliance is set to make gains in major states, such as Maharashtra and Bihar, the exit polls suggested.
In the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the INDIA alliance is expected to dominate, as its parties did in 2014 and 2019 as well.
The NDA is expected to win most seats in other southern states, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka.
Modi has exuded confidence of winning a third successive mandate.
The exit polls showed BJP significantly raising its vote share in the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala even as the party was seen getting very few seats.
The seventh and the last phase of general election concluded today and the counting of votes is scheduled on June 4.
Reacting to exit poll findings, several opposition leaders in a satirical tone dismissed it as ‘PM Modi’s surveys’ stating that the real numbers would be known only on the counting day.
In the state of West Bengal, the BJP is seen making huge gains with India Today-Axis My India exit poll predicting 26-31 seats for the saffron party while Mamata Banerjee-led TMC bagging only 11-14 seats.
