Counting of votes on December 8
New Delhi, December 5
The exit polls by various agencies on Monday gave both Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh to the BJP, in what would be historic and record wins, should these projections hold good on December 8, the result day.
Barring Aaj Tak-My Axis exit poll, four others projected BJP's win in the hill state of Himachal, where no incumbent government has retained power since 1985.
The poll of five polls—India Today-My Axis; Republic TV-P Marq; News X-Jan ki Baat; Times Now-ETG and India TV projected an average of 36 seats for the BJP — just one more than the majority and 29 to the Congress in an assembly of 68 members.
AAP has failed to make any impact in Himachal, with the poll of polls giving the Arvind Kejriwal led party a duck and Others three.
If the exit polls hold, the BJP, powered by a highly personalised campaign in Himachal by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, would have created a record by becoming the first government since 1985 to retain power.
The Congress, by exit poll projections, is set to lose Himachal, and would continue to remain in power only in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
In Gujarat, poll of polls today gave 131 seats out of 182 to the BJP—with the saffron brigade breaking its own record of winning the highest 127 seats in the state in 2002 under Narendra Modi as CM.
Modi had during the Gujarat campaign urged people to help CM Bhupendra Patel break “Modi's 2002 record.”
The Congress, which had won 77 seats in 2017, could settle at 41 in Gujarat this time with AAP winning an average of seven seats, as projected.
The exit poll average projects others will win three seats.
The board takeaways from the exit poll projections would be—continuation of BJP as the dominant political force, continuation of Congress Party's electoral decline and a lingering air of invincibility around PM Modi who held 20 rallies in Himachal and more in Gujarat, leading from the front.
AAP's lacklustre show in Himachal could mean a reflection of the woes its government in Punjab is facing next door in Punjab.
In Gujarat, AAP's inability to make any major impact, as polls project, mirror the state's historical trend which does not favour triangular fights.
