Delhi voted on February 5 to elect its next government, and the results will be out today. The BJP is eyeing to dethrone the ruling Aam Aadmi Party after a decade, banking on allegations of corruption against former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The AAP, on the other hand, is using its "Delhi model" of health and education to showcase how the government has developed Delhi over the past 10 years.

Exit polls have projected the BJP as the winner, but not every time they get it right. Fresh data, from Today's Chanakya, Axis My India, CNX, released Thursday evening predicts a return to power in the national capital, for the first time since 1998.

The Axis My India poll expects Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party to win between 45 and 55 of Delhi's 70 seats, while CNX is even more gung-ho, giving the BJP between 49 and 61 seats. The former gives the ruling AAP 15 to 25 seats, the latter 10-19. And Today's Chanakya gives the BJP 51 seats to the AAP's 19.

The AAP, however, has firmly rejected the exit poll data, pointing out they had been similarly written off before each of their wins in 2015 and 2020. AAP leader Sushil Gupta told news agency ANI, "This is our fourth election... every time exit polls did not show AAP (winning, but) Arvind Kejriwal has worked for the people of Delhi. We will see the results in favour of AAP and we will form the government..."

While exit polls do not always get it right, in the last two elections in Delhi, they had correctly predicted a victory for AAP, though falling short of the massive mandate the party had received. They even got it right in Punjab, the second state AAP won.  

The exit poll predictions come on the heels of a loud and clear election campaign by the BJP that kept a tight focus on the corruption allegations against AAP -- the party that came to power on the wings of the anti-corruption movement by Gandhian Anna Hazare.

Over the last two years, a majority of AAP leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal and his aide Manish Sisodia spent time in jail over multiple corruption allegations.

Not just the massive alleged liquor policy scam, the "Sheesh Mahal" allegations against Mr Kejriwal - the Rs 33.6 crore revamp that that turned the official residence of the Chief Minister into an opulent bungalow suitable for the uber-rich - appeared to have taken the sheen off AAP that thrived on its governance records for the better part of the last decade.