Exit Polls: BJP To Retain UP, AAP To Sweep Punjab.

As elections concluded on March 7 in five states across India, the early exit poll results are in and some of the results are quite surprising in one or another.

The Bharatiya Janata Party will hold on to the reins of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, and Manipur, while in a seismic shift Aam Aadmi Party will dethrone the Congress in Punjab, exit polls indicated on Monday.

The predictions came on a day the final round of voting ended in the seven-phase elections of UP, considered a bellwether of the national mood, with the Lok Sabha polls to be held in 2024. The counting of votes for the assembly elections in the five states will take place on March 10.

While the BJP-led alliance may get fewer seats this time in Uttar Pradesh compared to its landslide win in 2017, a victory will be a shot in the arm for the government led by chief minister Yogi Adityanath who has contested his first MLA election, after managing key challenges faced by his administration in India’s most populous state, particularly of the Covid pandemic and law enforcement.

A victory in Punjab for AAP, which is also in power in Delhi, will give the party an opportunity to implement its governance model in a full-fledged state for the first time. The Congress may be left licking its wounds after failing to quell fierce infighting in time.

Uttarakhand and Goa may see close contests, the exit polls suggest, but the BJP appears to have the edge in both states, while it seems to be on course for a win in Manipur.