Conrad Sangma's Party Biggest In Meghalaya, Trinamool Second: Exit Polls

Chief Minister Conrad Sangma's National People's Party (NPP) will emerge as the single largest party in Meghalaya with 20 seats, showed a poll of exit polls on Monday.

Trinamool Congress, the party of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, will win 11 seats while the BJP and Congress will finish third with six seats each in the race to the 60-seat assembly, showed a tally of the exit polls.

As many as 17 seats will be bagged by other parties, it showed.

A health warning - exit polls often get it wrong.

NPP will win 21-26 seats, Trinamool 8-13, BJP 6-11, and Congress 3-6, showed an exit poll by Zee News-Matrize. Other parties will 10-19 seats, it showed.

Another exit poll gave far lesser figures to the BJP.

The Times Now-ETG Research exit poll gave 18-26 seats to NPP and 8-14 seats to Trinamool. The BJP will win 3-6 seats, Congress 2-5, and other parties 12-23, the exit poll showed.

The NPP will win 18-24 seats, Trinamool 5-9, Congress 6-12, BJP 4-8, and other parties 12-20, according to India Today-Axis My India exit poll.

NPP will win 11-16 seats, Trinamool 9-14, Congress 6-11, BJP 3-7, and other parties 20-21, showed another exit poll by Jan ki Baat.

The BJP had ended its alliance with NPP before contesting the polls this year and contested all 60 seats alone.

A voter turnout of 74.3% was witnessed in 59 out of 60 seats in Meghalaya on Monday. The election to the Sohiong seat was adjourned due to the death of HDR Lyngdoh, former state home minister and a United Democratic Party candidate.

With the exit polls predicting no party getting a majority, Mr Sangma underlined that election is different from government formation.

"If we get a fractured mandate, we will have to talk to other parties to form government. Northeast gets divided amongst themselves and the numbers don't give it a voice at the national level. If a party can give voice to Northeast at the national level, then we will work towards it," Mr Sangma, who contested from the South Tura constituency, told NDTV.

The votes will be counted on Thursday, along with Nagaland and Tripura.