An aggregate of four exit polls have predicted a second term for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, the country's largest state seen as the gateway to power at the Centre. The BJP, the aggregate indicates, may win 232 of the state's 403 assembly seats. Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, seen as the big challenger to the BJP, may win 150 seats. Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party may win 15 and the Congress at the bottom of the tally with four seats.
Statutory warning: Exit polls do not always get it right. The counting of votes will take place on March 10.
The figures projected today are far below the 300-plus target the BJP's master strategist Amit Shah had set the party. Two weeks ago, the Union Home Minister had predicted that the party will easily meet the target.
In the 2017 elections in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP had swept the election, winning 312 of the 384 seats it contested. The Samajwadi Party, which was ruling the state, only got 47 of the 311 seats it contested. Mayawati's party won 19 and the Congress only seven.
This time, the Samajwadi Party is hoping to win big, especially in view of the anti-incumbency against the Yogi Adityanath government, its handling of the second wave of Covid and the widespread unemployment in the state.
Mr Yadav, who had stitched up a rainbow coalition with a number of smaller parties hoping to supplement his Muslim-Yadav support base with Other Backward Castes and Jats, had been drawing massive crowds at his rallies across the state.
The last phase of the mammoth seven-phase elections in the state ended today.
