New Delhi: A majority of exit polls have predicted a win for the BJP and its allies in the Maharashtra assembly elections. Many also forecast a victory for the BJP camp in Jharkhand, but some predicted that the INDIA bloc would win.
Elections were held in a single phase in Maharashtra on Wednesday (November 20), where the majority mark in the 288-seat assembly is 145 seats. As per three (People’s Pulse, JVC-Times Now and Chanakya Strategies) of the five exit polls sampled here, the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance will comfortably cross the majority mark.
One exit poll (Lokshahi-Rudra) forecast that neither the incumbent Mahayuti nor the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance would win a majority.
Another (P-Marq) threw up a variety of possibilities, including a victory by either camp and a hung assembly. The median number of seats it forecast for the Mahayuti is 147.
In Jharkhand, elections were held in two phases – one on November 13 and the other on Wednesday – to the 81-member assembly, where the majority mark is 41 seats.
Two of the four exit polls sampled here (Peoples Pulse and JVC-Times Now) predicted a win for the BJP and its allies, one predicted the incumbent INDIA bloc would win (Axis My India) and another (P-Marq) theoretically allowed for multiple outcomes.
Votes for both states will be counted on Saturday (November 23).
The major parties in the Mahayuti ruling alliance are the BJP, the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party.
The Congress, the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena and the Sharad Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party are the primary MVA parties.
In Jharkhand, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) also comprises the All Jharkhand Students Union and the Janata Dal (United).
The ruling INDIA bloc comprises the Congress, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation.
While exit polls are regularly released once voting in an election is complete, they do not always get the results right – a prominent example being the exit poll forecasts immediately following the general elections earlier this year.
This article is originally published on The Wire on November 20, 2024.
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