NEW DELHI: The day BJP’s national president JP Nadda offered prayers at the holy shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi, projections of almost all exit polls hinted at the party’s victory in Uttar Pradesh.
Election results will be declared on March 10. The exit polls project that Congress is failing to make a comeback in Punjab, with almost all of them showing AAP leading in the state.
They show a close fight between BJP and Congress in Goa and Uttarakhand. In Manipur, the exit polls say, BJP will win.
The exit poll projection shared by India News said BJP will retain power in UP with 230-245 seats out of 403. ETO Research also projected as many seats for BJP.
“What our senior leaders Amit Shah and JP Nadda have claimed for UP and the other three states will not prove untrue. We have got major support from the OBC in four states,” said Nikhil Anand, national general secretary of BJP’s OBC Morcha.
BJP sources said the rallies addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hard work of the local workers and campaigning by prominent national leaders have given the party an edge over its main rival SP, which has claimed that the exit polls are not showing the true picture.
SP and BSP, BJP’s main rivals in UP, maintained that the saffron party will lose. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said the ruling party would be wiped out.
“Let them (exit polls) show whatever they have got. We are winning with a majority,” he said.
The former chief minister added that the SP-led alliance would come to power with over 300 seats.
“Gratitude to all voters, especially the youth, for taking the SP alliance beyond the majority mark,” Yadav tweeted. BSP MP from Amroha, Kunwar Danish Ali also said BJP would lose.
“Exit polls are opinion-making surveys. These are to create a perception about the election results so that there can be malpractice in counting. They are preparing the ground for that. BJP will definitely bite the dust,” he said.
In Punjab, exit polls said AAP’s seats will range between 50-100 in an Assembly of 117 seats. Congress is likely to get between 10 and 33. It can be noted that Punjab Congress saw a lot of turmoil in the run-up to the elections.
Asked about the party’s position in Goa, where Congress, AAP and TMC are also in the fray, BJP’s national spokesperson Guru Prakash said the party will retain power due to the work it has done there.
However, the majority of exit polls predict a tough fight between BJP and Congress in Goa, with the latter having a slight edge.
Congress was the single largest party in 2017 also but failed to form the government as BJP moved fast and got allies to form the government.
Uttarakhand, a state that never voted the incumbent government back to power, is also seeing a tough fight between BJP and Congress with the former having an edge.
During the five-year term of the BJP government, the party changed three chief ministers, giving a handle to the opposition to question the leadership.