Exit polls have not thrown up any surprises, BJP and AAP are winners and Cong a big loser
The results of exit polls for the Assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh and of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi are on expected lines. Most reports and experts were suggesting that the Bharatiya Janata Party would increase its tally of 99 out of 182 seats in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state, overcoming 27 years of anti-incumbency and even the bad press that the saffron party got after the Morbi mishap. The average of nine exit polls for the BJP in Gujarat is 132, whereas for the Congress it is 38 and the Aam Aadmi Party, eight. In the Himalayan state too, where the electorate prefers to change the state government every five years, the BJP was seen as a party that wasn’t leaving any stone unturned. A video went viral in which no less a person that the PM was heard trying to coax a rebel party candidate to withdraw his candidature. Exit polls show a tough contest in Himachal, which has 68 Assembly seats, the BJP’s average being 35 and the Congress’ 30, while AAP is unlikely to open its account. Only Aaj Tak-Axis My India, which gave 30-40 seats to the Congress and 24-34 to the BJP, has thrown up the possibility of the grand old party coming back to power in the hill state. For the MCD election, there were four exit polls, all of which gave a comfortable majority to AAP, the average being 154. The BJP’s average was 84 and the Congress’ six.
If exit polls are correct on the whole, they highlight a few facts. First, the BJP’s election machine is unrivaled. The party’s detractors may accuse it of having amassed wealth and using law-enforcement agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate to further its electoral ends, but it would be wrong to deny the magnitude of effort put in by its cadre and that of the RSS. They don’t leave anything to chance; they are not deterred or daunted by events like the Morbi bridge collapse or the incidence of rebels everywhere; they just don’t give up. The Congress, on the other hand, is just not willing, able, or both to take up the challenge that it faces today—the existential challenge against Modi’s BJP. Rahul Gandhi is busy uniting the country, even as his own party is withering away. His sister, Priyanka Vadra, did work in Himachal, but not as much as her party leaders in the state wanted her to. What was once seen as a low-hanging fruit for the GOP seems to have become an apple of discord. The AAP looks like a winner. It appears to be winning the MCD election; for 15 years, the local bodies (there were three MCDs till recently) were under the BJP. Typically, the saffron party did everything to win the MCD election—from a high-profile campaign involving its stalwarts to the use of Satyendra Jain’s video clips—but to little avail. Its performance in the two other states, however, compensates for the loss. The GOP, however, has no such compensation.