New Delhi: An aggregate of ten exit polls have predicted a second term for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, the country's largest state seen as the gateway to power at the Centre. The BJP, the aggregate indicates, may win 240-plus of the state's 403 assembly seats. Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, seen as the big challenger to the BJP, may win 130-plus seats. Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party may win 10-plus and the Congress at the bottom of the tally with four seats.
Exit polls on CNN News 18, Republic TV and News X channels showed the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) getting 211-277 seats and its main challenger in the Samajwadi Party-led alliance getting anywhere between 119 and 160 seats in Uttar Pradesh.
CNN News 18 predicted 262-277 seats for the BJP and allies and 119-134 for the SP and allies in the 403-member state assembly.
Statutory warning: Exit polls do not always get it right. The counting of votes will take place on March 10.
The figures projected today are far below the 300-plus target the BJP's master strategist Amit Shah had set the party. Two weeks ago, the Union Home Minister had predicted that the party will easily meet the target.
In the 2017 elections in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP had swept the election, winning 312 of the 384 seats it contested. The Samajwadi Party, which was ruling the state, only got 47 of the 311 seats it contested. Mayawati's party won 19 and the Congress only seven.
This time, the Samajwadi Party is hoping to win big, especially in view of the anti-incumbency against the Yogi Adityanath government, its handling of the second wave of Covid and the widespread unemployment in the state.
Mr Yadav, who had stitched up a rainbow coalition with a number of smaller parties hoping to supplement his Muslim-Yadav support base with Other Backward Castes and Jats, had been drawing massive crowds at his rallies across the state.
As the last phase of the mammoth seven-phase elections in the state ended today, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav dismissed the exit poll results, saying, "Let them show whatever they have got. We are winning with a majority".