)
* Stable govt possible without support from regional powers
* Congress set to see lowest tally ever; Third front, AAP, Left face rout
* Highest-ever nationwide turnout of 66% points to decisive mandate
The exit polls released on Monday indicated that a Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) might be all set to form a strong and stable government at the Centre.
The exit polls, released after voting ended for the 41 seats in the ninth and final phase of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, suggested the BJP and its 24 allies that constitute the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) may get sufficient numbers, which would insulate the new government from many of the pulls and pressures of coalition politics. (NDA & EXIT POLLS: 3RD-TIME LUCKY?)
All the half dozen exit polls estimated the NDA to either cross the majority mark of 272 or come within touching distance of it, a trend that the markets seemed to have captured on Friday and Monday as they surged on expectations of a decisive verdict for a stable government at the Centre.
The polls forecast the worst-ever electoral performance for the Congress and a complete decimation of what is known as the Third Front, including the Left parties. The nascent Aam Aadmi Party is also unlikely to live up to its initial promise, exit polls predict.
The counting of votes is scheduled for Friday. If the exit polls prove correct, not since 1991 would a single political party have received such a decisive mandate.
Only one exit poll, the News Nation-Times Now-ORG, forecast that the NDA may fall short of the majority mark of 272 seats. It predicted 249 seats for the NDA. At the other end of the spectrum, Today’s Chanakya claimed the NDA could bag as many as 340 seats, with the BJP on its own notching up 291 seats.
If correct, the BJP would achieve a tally that no political party has bagged since the 1984 elections when the Congress notched up a brute majority of over 400 seats. It would be the kind of decisive mandate that some believe Modi needs so as to take tough decisions required to spur economic growth.
C-Voter also forecast a perilous drop in the number of seats for the ruling UPA and a substantial increase for the BJP-led NDA. It predicted an abysmal 101 seats for the UPA, with the Congress at an all-time low tally of 78 seats — a massive loss of 128 seats from the 206 seats it won in 2009. It has estimated 249 seats for the BJP and 289 for the NDA. The BJP’s previous best performance was 182 seats in the 1998 and 1999 elections.
The India Today-Cicero exit poll forecast 272 seats for the NDA and 115 for the UPA. The CNN-IBN CSDS and ABP News-AC Nielsen exit poll also showed similar trends, with the NDA likely to reach closest to the majority 272 seats.
According to exit polls, the BJP might win most of the seven seats of Delhi. That would be consistent with the bellwether nature of Delhi — that whoever wins Delhi forms the government at the Centre.
Notably, both the 2004 and 2009 exit polls had been way off the mark.
The 2004 exit polls had predicted a return of the NDA, which eventually suffered an embarrassing loss. In 2009, no one could predict the handsome return of the UPA.
There were huge variations in the state-wise estimates of the exit polls released on Monday. One exit poll forecast a sweep for the BJP in Rajasthan while another said the Congress would perform creditably in that state. Similarly, predictions for Madhya Pradesh also varied from the BJP sweeping the majority of its 29 seats to the Congress winning as many as a dozen.
BJP leaders exuded confidence that the actual results on Friday would confirm the exit poll forecasts. In a statesmanlike comment, Modi wrote on his blog on Monday evening that it was time to leave the bitterness of the election campaign behind and “resurrect” the “spirit of bi-partisanship”. BJP president Rajnath Singh congratulated the people of India over a decisive verdict.
The Congress refused to take part in the exit poll discussions on news channels. Party spokesman Shakeel Ahmed said the Congress had little trust in the exit polls, pointing out how incorrect they were in both 2004 and 2009.
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said “pollsters normally have a tendency to err on the side of caution”. But, Jaitley said, he had no doubt that the large turnouts would “necessarily mean a decisive vote”. “A decisive vote in this election can only be a pro-Modi, pro-BJP or pro-NDA vote,” he said.
Meanwhile, the trend of high voter turnout continued on Monday. Six seats of Bihar, 18 of UP and 17 of West Bengal voted. The Election Commission has estimated that the 2014 elections saw over 66 per cent voter turnout, beating the highest-ever mark of 64 per cent recorded in the 1984 elections held in the wake of then prime minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination..
The 2014 elections yet again served a warning how money power continued to subvert democracy. According to EC, Rs 331 crore cash was seized during the election campaign. This is at least thrice of the cash seized in 2009. Enforcement agencies also sized 225 lakh litres of liquor and 1.85 lakh kg of narcotics.
