No Reliable Face in Opposition: Yogendra Yadav on Exit Polls

(Photo: The Quint/Shruti Mathur)

Yogendra Yadav said the opposition lacked a messenger who could covey a message on issues faced by the nation.

Reacting to most exit polls predicting a clean sweep for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Swaraj India Chief Yogendra Yadav told The Quint, “it is not the people’s trust on Modi, but the absence of a reliable face in the Opposition” that could be responsible for the NDA’S return in 2019.

(Follow exit polls results from Chanakya-News24, Axis My India, News18-IPSOS, Times Now-VMR andNielsen here.)

On predictions of the BJP winning lesser seats in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav said that “there was no question of winning 71 seats in UP. But the initial idea that the SP-BSP alliance would reduce the BJP to 10-12 seats in UP is clearly not happening.”

While the BJP may find a reduced tally in UP, Yadav says that a clear trend in support of the party is likely in states recently won by the Congress. These include Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and even Karnataka, where the BJP seems to have a clear edge.

In West Bengal, Yadav says that the BJP has clearly grown and is likely to increase its tally. This, however, could mean that “Bengal is heading for difficult times in the next two years.”