Local pollsters say advantage MVA in Maha, nat’l ones put Mahayuti ahead | Mumbai News

MUMBAI: Exit polls on Saturday predicted that the BJP-led NDA, despite the split in the Shiv Sena and NCP and aligning with Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, will not touch the tally of 41 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra that it won in 2019. However, the exit polls for Maharashtra stand divided on the number of seats that the governing Mahayuti will win as against the MVA. While exit polls from the regional media channels predicted a higher number of seats for the Maha Vikas Aghadi, those from national media channels predicted that the Mahayuti would do better than the MVA.
The regional channels’ exit polls predicted that the Mahayuti would bag 22-23 seats compared to the MVA bagging 24-26.The prediction for BJP is 13-18, Shinde Sena is 4-6, Ajit Pawar’s NC-2, Thackeray Sena 9-14, Congress 3-8, NCP (SP) 4-6 and Independents 1.
The national exit polls on the other hand predicted that the Mahayuti would bag 30-35 seats and the MVA would get 15-18 seats.
BJP Mumbai unit president Ashish Shelar said he “principally does not comment on exit polls” but “for Mumbai I am confident we shall win all six seats and I am sure it could be 4-2 seats.”

The Congress and Sharad Pawar-led NCP on Saturday rejected the outcome of the exit polls on the grounds that it was unrealistic.
“We are sure the INDIA bloc will win at least 300 seats at the national level and more than 30 seats in Maharashtra. I have seen the exit polls by certain agencies, it appears that most of them are unrealistic and unacceptable. People of Maharashtra have faith in MVA leaders, and under such circumstances, we expect that the MVA will cross the 30 mark in Maharashtra,” Patole told TOI.
NCP (SP) spokesperson Mahesh Tapase too said that his party was rejecting the exit polls. “It appears that the exit polls are unrealistic as we are expecting that the MVA will win at least 35 seats in Maharashtra,” he said.
Tapase said that during the entire campaign, it was found that there was discontent over the performance of Prime Miniater Narendra Modi as well as the Eknath Shinde government. “People of Maharashtra have expressed faith in the leadership of MVA leaders, particularly Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray. Under such circumstances, we are sure the MVA will cross the mark of 35 seats,” Tapase said.
There had been a lot of focus on Maharashtra in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections and during the election campaign itself in view of the split in two major regional parties, the Shiv Sena and the NCP.
While Sena split in 2022 with Eknath Shinde rebelling against the leadership of Uddhav Thackeray with 40 legislators, the Ajit Pawar-led NCP joined the Shinde-Fadnavis govt last year with Ajit getting sworn in as deputy chief minister. The EC has give n the Sena party name and election symbol to CM Eknath Shinde’s Sena and the NCP name and symbol has been given to Ajit Pawar.