HYDERABAD: After months of gruelling campaigning in extreme heatwave conditions for the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections, political parties and voters could get a glimpse of what could be forthcoming, at 6.30 pm on Saturday when media organisations broadcast their exit poll results.
While the exit polls results may or may not be correct, and numerous agencies have previously put out conflicting predictions, political parties, and voters, expect to find enough hints in Saturday’s numbers to answer three major questions.
The first and foremost question would be whether or not the BJP, which went for the third consecutive poll under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, would reach the magic figure of 272 on its own, as against its claim of “ab ki baar, char sau paar.”
The second question, perhaps the least interesting among the three, is about the principal opposition Congress reaching the triple digit mark at the national level and double digits in Telangana where the complete rout of the BRS has left the ring open for the Congress and the BJP.
Finally, the biggest question among the Telugus is whether the winning party in Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, be it the Telugu Desam-led alliance or incumbent Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy's YSR Congress, would form government with a comfortable majority or a neck-and-neck race is on the cards.
The large-scale violence on May 13 when AP went for simultaneous polls for the Assembly and the Lok Sabha, and a few days after, is keeping the police on high alert in the run up for counting of votes on June 4.
"We struggled hard to convince voters to elect us before polls. We are continuing to struggle after the polls to convince the same voters that they voted for us by bombarding the media with analysis and testimonies of voters," said a senior minister in Jagan Mohan Reddy's Cabinet from the coastal districts who is known for his wit and whose defeat has become certain even according to him.
In Telangana, the Congress leadership is confident of winning most of the 17 seats on offer, but is sure of the BJP gaining considerably following the large-scale shift of the BRS vote to the saffron party in some constituencies. A reputed poll survey agency, according to sources, put the erosion of BRS vote at 18-20 per cent. While it said that some portion of the BRS vote went to the Congress, the major chunk was found to have gone to the BJP.
The Congress leadership has also dismissed the threat of the BJP, initiated by its OBC Morcha chairman and Rajya Sabha member K. Laxman, about fall of Revanth Reddy-led state government as it is confident that Congress MLAs would not prefer to lose the liberty and leverage they enjoy while being in the Congress government.
