Team News Riveting
New Delhi, June 1
A historic third term in power awaits Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the exit polls predict after the seventh and the last phase of Lok Sabha election 2024 concluded Saturday evening.
Only one, though, has carried the NDA across its dream score of 400 of 543 Lok Sabha seats. The BJP, too, has been placed far short of its 370-seat target. The INDIA bloc, five exit polls predicted, will fall massively short of the 285 seats predicted by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge this evening.
An aggregate of seven exit polls indicates that the NDA will get 361 seats, the INDIA bloc will get 145 seats. The BJP’s individual score will be 311 seats and the Congress 63, up from the 52 seats it won in the last general election.
The maximum number of seats predicted for the NDA was 371-401, in the exit poll by India TV-CNX. It predicts the Opposition bloc will get 109-139 seats. It is followed by Jan ki Baat, which is predicting that the NDA will get 362-392 seats and INDIA 141-161 seats. The lowest score for the NDA comes from Dainik Bhaskar — 281-350, and a corresponding higher score for the INDIA bloc, 145-201 seats.
All exit polls, however, are unanimous about NDA’s improved performance in the south and in Bengal. The two states along with Odisha will facilitate the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to retain power at the Centre for the third consecutive term.
The BJP is even expected to open its account Tamil Nadu, with at least two seats, and in Kerala with one, exit polls predict.
In Bengal, the BJP is expected to push up its 2019 score of 18 seats to 22, thrashing out Trinamool Congress for the first time. Mamata Banerjee’s party could get just 19 of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha seats.
In neighbouring Odisha, the BJP can do even better, winning 15 of the state’s 21 seats and confining Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal — once the unquestioned choice of the people — to the margins.
In Andhra Pradesh, the alliance with Chandrababu Naidu paid off, they predict, with the NDA expected to get 18 of the state’s 25 seats.
