From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Pending counting of votes on Thursday to know the results of the Assembly polls in five states, most of the exit polls by various agencies give landslide victory to AAP in Punjab, with 37% preferring its MP Bhagwant Mann as the next CM while the Bharatiya Janata Party appears to retain power in all four states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, though with lower number of seats compared to 2017.
The aggregate of the exit polls shows the BJP winning 232 of the 403 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, pushing behind Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, seen as the big challenger, to 150 seats while Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party may win 15 seats and the Congress at the botton of the tally with just 4 seats.
Goa is too close to call in the exit polls, with BJP retaining power with 17-20 seats and the Congress 15-17, though Republic TV shows both getting 13-17 in the 40-seat assembly.
The figures projected in UP are far below the 300-plus target set bh the BJP’s master strategist Home Minister Amit Shah. In 2017 elections, the BJP had swept 312 of the 384 seats it contested while the Samajwadi Party got 47 seats, BSP 19 and the Congress only 7. The last phase of the mammoth seven-phase elections in the state ended on Monday.
NewsX TV channel predicts 56-61 seats to AAP in Punjab as against 24-29 to the ruling Congress while the BJP to get 1-6 seats and Akali Dal 22-26 seats. The majority mark in Punjab is 39.
In Uttarakhand exit polls, the BJP is likely to bag 32-41 seats to retain power, Congress between 27-35, AAP to get between 0-1 and others to get between 0-4.
The BJP also appears all set to retain power in Manipur, winning 32-38 seats in the 60-member Assembly, according to ZEE TV, which put 12-17 seagts to Congress, 2-4 to NPP and 2-5 to NPF.
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