PM Modi guaranteed, predict exit polls, give BJP & allies 353 to 415 seats | India News

Exit polls released on Saturday were unanimous in predicting a third term for PM Modi with NDA doing at least as well as it did in 2019 by crossing the 350-mark. Some of the polls suggested that even the ‘400-paar’ target BJP had set before the polls could be achieved.

The polls also agreed that underpinning the hat-trick, which would equal Nehru’s record, was the stunning expansion of BJP’s base in the eastern and southern states.In West Bengal and Odisha, it is projected to comfortably pip the incumbents to pole position. The polls predicted that BJP would win between 19 and 31 of the 42 seats in Bengal, with most pegging it at over 20. In Odisha, the projections for BJP range from a minimum of 9 to a maximum of 20 of the state’s 21 seats, while BJD, which has dominated Odisha for two decades, was seen as winning at best 10 seats.
The saffron party is also seen by the polls as poised to beat or at least equal Congress’s tally in Telangana while its alliance with TDP in Andhra Pradesh was projected by all but one poll to sweep the state. It could also open its tally in Kerala and win seats in Tamil Nadu without an alliance with either of the major Dravidian parties, if the polls prove right.
The forecasts ranged from a low of 353 (projected by CVoter-ABP news and Matrize-Republic Bharat) to 415 (by Today’s Chanakya-News24). The INDIA alliance is forecast to win at best 182 seats with Today’s Chanakya even hinting at the possibility of it dropping below the three-digit mark.

Exit polls are generally believed to be more accurate than opinion polls conducted in the run-up to elections. Their track record in India has been mixed with several successes interspersed with failures. The actual results will be known on June 4.

If the exit polls are to be believed, the expansion in the east and south, combined with a minimising of losses in larger states where it had won all or nearly all seats in 2019 – like Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka – will be more than enough to prevent any decrease in the tally of the BJP-led alliance.
The one state in which the polls agreed the saffron alliance would face major reverses compared to five years back was Maharashtra, with a couple of the polls projecting the state to be a neck and neck race between the BJP-led Mahayuti and the INDIA alliance. NDA had won 41 of the state’s 48 seats in 2019.
In UP, the state with the highest number of Lok Sabha seats, the consensus was that NDA would not only hold on to its 2019 tally of 64 but also add some seats to that, though not too many. In Bihar, while NDA is expected to drop a few seats compared to 2019, the scale of the losses would be a disappointment to the opposition alliance. Of the polls being analysed here, none gave the INDIA alliance more than 10 of the 40 seats in the state.