DNA Exclusive: Will 'Lotus' bloom in Bengal? Check Maha EXIT POLL details here

New Delhi: The Exit Poll results of elections in four states and one union territory have been declared.

According to Zee News Maha Exit Poll, BJP is set to win in Assam and Puducherry. There is a close battle in Bengal but BJP seems to have the edge. In Tamil Nadu, DMK is likely to get a win over the ruling party AIADMK and in Kerala LDF is expected to form government again.

Zee News Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary on Thursday (April 29) discussed the exit polls results of five assemblies with a special focus on West Bengal where the chances of “lotus” blooming look decent.

In Assam, out of the total 126 seats, BJP is expected to win 73 (64 seats are needed to form the government), while Congress and its allies are likely to 51 seats.

According to the Maha Exit Poll, out of a total of 234 seats in Tamil Nadu, where 118 seats are needed to form the government, pollsters predict that DMK-Congress alliance can form the government as it is expected to bag 173 seats. AIADMK and BJP are estimated to get only 57 seats.

In Kerala, the ruling party LDF is expected to win 91 out of the 140 seats, paving its way to power. UDF is projected to get 47 seats only.

In Puducherry, with about 19 seats, BJP could emerge as the victor.

Battle of Bengal

However, all eyes are on the results of West Bengal polls, where there is a tough contest between BJP and Mamata Banerjee’s TMC. Banerjee may not have expected that BJP would reach so close, but the party has done it.

According to Maha EXIT POLL, BJP is expected to win 144 seats, while TMC could win 132 seats. Congress and Left alliance are likely to get only 16 seats.

In West Bengal, it has been observed that since the 2006 assembly elections, the Exit Polls have never been wrong.

In 2006, Mamata Banerjee was looking strong against then Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee of the Left. But as the Exit Poll predicted, the Left parties won comfortably.

Similarly, in the Exit Poll of the 2011 assembly elections, it was predicted that 34 years of left governance would end in Bengal and TMC government would come to power. When the results came out, the Exit Polls were proved correct. The same happened in the 2016 assembly elections.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as well, most of the Exit Polls were saying that there will be a close fight between BJP and TMC. And that is what happened. Whether this trend will continue this time or not, will be clear on May 2.

In the 2016 assembly elections, TMC had a voter share of 45.6 percent and it won 211 of the 294 seats. CPM came second with 20.1 percent vote share, Congress third and BJP was at the fourth position.

BJP's vote share at that time was 10.3 percent and won only three seats out of 294. It means the party was not even close to TMC five years ago. But today it is claiming it stake to form the government in the state.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, TMC won 22 seats out of 42 seats, while BJP won 18. The vote share of TMC was around 43 percent, while that of BJP was 40 percent – a difference of just 3 per cent.

From a difference of 35 percent in 2016 assembly elections to 3 per cent in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP filled an enormous gap in just three years.

Will the BJP be able to finally take lead over TMC in Bengal? This will be answered on May 2.

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