Exit polls conducted by different television channels have provided varying figures but all of them have predicted a BJP victory in the Gujarat Assembly elections, which ended on Sunday. The results will be known next Sunday, December 23, when the counting of votes will take place.
The exit polls also indicated that while the BJP would return to power in the state, its majority would be reduced from what it had secured in the 2002 election. All the television polls agreed that the election in Gujarat had been about Narendra Modi; people were either for him or against him, and that he was by far the most well-known leader in the state.
NDTV forecast that the BJP would get between 90 to 110 seats overall, out of the total 182 seats in the Assembly, while the Congress would get 70-95 seats and Others between three and five seats. NDTV surveyed over 18,000 people over both phases of the election, including at least 9,000 voters in the second phase on Sunday.
CNN-IBN predicted that the BJP would get between 92 to 100 seats, while the Congress would get between 77 to 85 seats, and Others between three to seven seats. CNN-IBN did not reveal its exit poll findings immediately after the first phase last Tuesday, but said on Sunday that it had conducted a survey with over 9,000 respondents overall.
One-sixth of respondents, however, had refused to reveal how they had voted, so there was still some uncertainty there, CNN-IBN said. Star News also predicted a BJP victory. It predicted that the BJP would get 103 seats in the Assembly, with 76 seats for the Congress and three for Others. Out of the 95 seats for which polling was held on Sunday, Star News predicted that the BJP would get 55 seats, the Congress 39 and Others one seat. Polling had been held for 87 Assembly seats in the first phase on December 11.
At the end of the first day of voting, Star News had projected a tally of 115 seats overall for the BJP, a figure which it revised downward to 103 at the end of Sunday’s voting. On voteshare, Star News said the BJP was expected to pick up 50 per cent of the vote, while the Congress would get 44.5 per cent.
NDTV said that in the second phase, out of 95 seats, the BJP would get between 55 to 65 seats, the Congress 30 to 45 seats, and Others between one and three seats.
An estimated 63 to 65 per cent of voters exercised their franchise in the 95 constituencies which went to the polls on Sunday, according to figures provided by the Election Commission in the evening. In 2002, the BJP had 73 seats out of the 95 polled in Phase II and the Congress had just 21, while Others had just one seat.
NDTV said that though eight per cent of voters shifted away from the BJP in Saurashtra, in Phase II only four per cent of voters shifted away. Among Scheduled Tribe voters, while 13 per cent shifted away from the BJP, only four per cent voted for the Congress while the remaining nine per cent went with others.