Modi a nose ahead, Congress in with chance

Exit polls point to a close finish in Gujarat

NEW DELHI: It may be tight but three exit polls after Sunday’s second and final phase of voting for the Gujarat Assembly elections show Narendra Modi ahead. 

The CNN-IBN-Divya Bhaskar poll gave Modi  92-100 seats and the Congress 77-85 seats in the 182-member Gujarat Assembly. 

According to NDTV, Modi was likely to get between 90 and 110 seats but it also gave the Congress a semblance of a chance by putting its tally in the range of 70 to 95.

Of the three, only Star TV predicted a clear victory for the BJP putting its tally at 103.

Based on the results of the exit polls, Modi appears to be home and dry. However given the margin of error in the exit polls, it’s likely the result will be close.

Significantly, in the CNN-IBN-Divya Bhaskar poll, nearly 15 % of the voters refused to say who they voted for. 

According to CNN-IBN-Divya Bhaskar, Modi is likely to return to power for the second time, but with a reduced majority.

The poll shows the BJP may lose nearly two dozen seats, yet win enough to get a clear majority and form the next government.

The NDTV poll also shows Modi ahead , but it also gives the Congress an outside chance of  edging past the  BJP.

One of the possible scenarios put forward by the NDTV is that the Congress could reach 100, nine more than the number of seats needed to form the government in the state.  

Modi, however, remains the odds on favourite to form the Government.

Though the BJP appears to have lost some ground in terms of vote share and seats, it still enjoys an edge against its main rival in the state, the Congress party.

The contest appears to have been largely a two-party affair with the BSP and others unlikely to win many seats, though their vote share may go up.

The exit polls suggest the BJP improved its performance in the last few days before elections and has done much better in North Gujarat, where polling took place on Sunday.

Modi appears to have more than made up for his losses in South Gujarat and Saurashtra where elections were held on December 11. The BJP appears all set to repeat its spectacular performance in 2002. 

The NDTV poll shows the BJP winning  55-65 seats in  the region. It may lose a few seats in Central Gujarat, which the BJP swept in 2002, but will retain the upper hand.

The Congress party is unlikely to repeat the kind of success it had in the 2004 parliamentary elections in South Gujarat, a predominantly tribal and conventionally pro-Congress region of the state.

There are not many seats here and the Congress cannot hope for a sweep. The Congress can expect to pick some additional seats in Saurashtra-Kuchh region but not as many as would be needed to cover its losses in Central and North Gujarat.

 If the poll findings are indeed reflected in the final outcome on December 23, the BJP would have won the fourth consecutive election in Gujarat, each on a different issue.

The assembly election of 1995 was a delayed mandate on Ram Mandir, the 1998 election on the Hajuria-Khajuria defections and the 2002 elections on the Godhra aftermath. 

The election of 2007 appears to have been driven by the personality of Narendra Modi and the positive evaluation of the BJP government.

At least partly, Modi appears to have succeeded in turning this election into a plebiscite on him. No other Congress or the BJP leader came anywhere near close to Modi in popularity ratings.

Although the government’s performance rating dropped a little towards the end and the proportion of those who did not wish to give it another chance went up, in all the Modi government was assessed positively by the people.