Ab ki baar...UP mein kiski sarkaar?
The much-awaited exit poll surveys were released on Saturday, 1 June, and The Quint is taking stock of what's in store for Uttar Pradesh, the most electorally crucial state consisting 80 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats.
It's a high-stakes battle for BJP in UP, where they need to bag more seats, in UP, the caste arithmetic and equations, local issues, the Ram mandir issue, choice of candidates among the INDIA bloc may or may not impact the results.
Since predictions by psephologists and political analysts have been the talk of the town this election season, let's look at some key exit polls.
First up, India Today-Axis My India which is predicting the following:
BJP: 64-67
INDIA bloc: 8-12
BSP: 0-1
The BJP is expected to secure 46% of the vote share, while the Samajwadi Party and Congress are expected to secure 30% and 9% vote share respectively, as per Axis My India exit poll.
The Bahujan Samaj Party is projected to secure 8% of the vote share.
For more context, the Axis My India exit poll is based on 5.8 lakh interviews conducted in all 543 parliamentary constituencies.
Watch all our exit polls and election coverage here.
Next up is the News24-Chanakya which has another range for the parties:
BJP- 68 (+/-) 7
Congress- 12 (+/-) 6
And 0 for others.
While on the other hand, ABP-CVoter pegs the seats like these:
NDA-62-66
INDIA-15-17
And 0 for others.
Looking at some more exit polls, PMARQ states that NDA will win 69 seats while INDIA bloc would secure 11. While, Matrize too predicted around 69-74 seats while INDIA will win around 6-11 seats.
The BJP-led alliance includes the Rashtriya Lok Dal, the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party and the NISHAD Party.
The ruling-BJP is contesting 75 seats, the RLD and SBSP two each, and the NISHAD party just one seat. Meanwhile, SP is contesting 62 seats and the Congress in 17 seats. The BSP was not part of the INDIA bloc this time.
Last time in UP alone, the NDA won a total of 64 seats. In 2019, Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party won 5 seats, only BSP gained 10 seats and Congress retained only one seat i.e. Raebareli.
Were Exit Polls Accurate for UP Last Time?
The BJP is predicted to poll 46% vote share this time. In 2019, the BJP was predicted to poll 48% vote share and the actual vote share came around 49%.
In 2019, the predicted numbers by Axis My India and Chanakya were closest in their predictions for UP.
For instance, Axis My India poll results had predicted a massive majority for the BJP to win around 62-68 seats in UP in 2019.
A few others like New 18-Ipsos and News 24-Chanakya tipped its tally over 60 seats.
Now, some constituencies where the Opposition could have some success are Saharanpur, Sambhal, Mainpuri, Kannauj, Ghosi, Ghazipur, Raebareli among others.
Some of the key candidates to watch out for are Congress' Rahul Gandhi vs BJP's Dinesh Pratap in Raebareli, Congress' KL Sharma vs BJP's Smriti Irani in Amethi, SP's Dimple Yadav vs BJP's Jayveer Singh in Mainpuri, SP's Akhilesh Yadav vs BJP's Subrat Pathak in Kannauj, SP's Ravidas Mehrotra vs BJP's Rajnath Singh in Lucknow and BJP's Arun Govil vs SP's Sunita Verma in Meerut.
In UP, the election by the BJP was mostly played around the Ram Mandir movement, the PM's popular personality and their government's schemes. PM Modi had also praised the state's chief minister Yogi Adityanath for his "good governance" and "zero-tolerance" policy against crime in the state.
Moreover, these exit polls beg the questions:
But has INDIA bloc made any progress, given that Congress and SP joint efforts made any different? Has BSP's nonexistence and their failure to put up a tough political fight brought major shifts in seats?
There was a strong public sentiment on ground on unemployment, inflation and the communal politics in some pockets of the state. But, how much will these effectively translate into votes? That will only become clearer on 4 June.
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