350 paar, Modi sarkar teesri baar: Exit polls

New Delhi, June 1

All exit polls on Saturday predicted a hat-trick for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, placing the BJP comfortably above the majority mark of 272 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha.

As many as seven exit polls predicted an average of 361 seats for the BJP-led NDA (less than PM Modi’s target of ‘400 paar’) and 145 for the INDIA bloc. The BJP’s aggregate seats as per these polls would be around 311 and that of the Congress 63.

If these predictions hold on June 4, the day the results of the Lok Sabha elections would be declared, the Congress would repeat its 2019 performance with a slight improvement. Also, Modi would become the only Prime Minister after late Jawaharlal Nehru to return to office thrice in a row.

The BJP had won 303 seats and the Congress 52 in the 2019 elections. The Congress was unable to get the post of leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha for which a party needs 10 per cent of the total seats i.e. 54. If actual results come in line with the exit polls, a Congress leader would be the official leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha. India TV-CNX was among the agencies which predicted a possible 400 seats for the NDA, placing the ruling combine in the 371-401 seat segment and the INDIA bloc in the 109-139 segment. Jan ki Baat said the NDA could get 362-392 seats, as against INDIA bloc’s 141-161. Dainik Bhaskar’s exit poll predicted 281-350 seats for the NDA and 145-201 for the opposition alliance.

All exit polls found the BJP making gains in the South, opening accounts in Tamil Nadu and Kerala and retaining hold over Karnataka and adding numbers in Telangana.

In West Bengal, the BJP could win 22 seats as against 18 it won in 2019, walking ahead of the ruling Trinamool Congress, which, as per exit polls, could be restricted to 19-22 seats.

In Odisha too, the BJP could do better with pollsters placing the number for the party at 15 (as against eight currently) out of the state’s 21 seats. The exit polls found that the BJP would dominate in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, UP, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Delhi and Jharkhand and lose some seats in Rajasthan and Haryana.

The Congress, meanwhile, is expected to repeat its 2019 performance in Kerala and Punjab, where it had bagged its highest and second-highest seats, respectively.

The exit polls said the Congress-led UDF would sweep Kerala and that the Congress was expected to repeat its 2019 performance in Punjab when it had bagged eight of 13 seats. The pollsters also predicted 0-4 seats for the BJP in Punjab.

Most polls have predicted a clean sweep for the BJP in HP where the party had bagged all four seats in 2019.

Ph-7 lok sabha poll sees 62% turnout

Curtains came down on polling for all 543 Lok Sabha seats as voting for the seventh phase on the remaining 57 seats across seven states and a union territory ended on Saturday. Till 11.45 pm, the voter turnout was 62 per cent with West Bengal recording the highest turnout of 73.47 per cent, followed by Jharkhand (70.66 per cent) and Himachal (68 per cent).

Actual results will be different: Cong

These are all psychological games he (PM Narendra Modi) is masterminding, but the actual results will be very different. — Jairam Ramesh, Congress