The see-saw battle of numbers on the television screens on Tuesday led to many highs and lows in the BJP and Congress headquarters even as the stock markets saw wild fluctuation.
As the counting progressed in the morning and the BJP tally seemed to reach 120 mark by forenoon, the BJP leaders declared the party a clear winner. The mood within the BJP was so elated that the party office, both in Delhi and Bengaluru, reverberated with drum beats and sloganeering.
The mood, however, changed as the Congress improved its tally and the BJP got stuck on 104. The expected visit of BJP president Amit Shah to BJP office here in the afternoon did not happen and three Union Ministers, including Prakash Javadekar, JP Nadda and Dharmendra Pradhan, were asked by the party chief to fly down to Bangalore. law Minister Ravishankar Prasad had earlier met Shah at his residence.
Earlier, buoyed by the emerging picture, Prasad took a swipe at Congress president Rahul Gandhi, saying someone was dreaming of becoming the Prime Minister, a reference to Gandhi’s statement during the Karnataka poll campaign that he was ready for the top post if his party won the 2019 lok Sabha election.
While the Congress announced a Press briefing to accept the defeat at 2pm, the plan changed as soon as news flashed that the party s has offered support to JDS and that they have accepted the same. Within minutes the AICC headquarters, particularly its communication departments, bustled with workers pouring in.
Rahul, who did not visit the party headquarters, took to the social media to comment. “A big thankyou to all those who voted for the Congress in these elections. We appreciate your efforts and will fight for you. Thank you also to our workers and leaders for their dedication and untiring hard work in support of the party,” Rahul tweeted soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed his party workers at BJP headquarters.
When it was clear that BJP was not at a comfortable position, the office started working on some precedents both in their and existing regimes. Since 2014 lok Sabha polls, except for the Punjab, the party has become used to losing Assembly elections and often the party office would look empty with very few party leaders offering to explain what went wrong.
Except the wins in Punjab and Bihar when the Congress had delivered an impressive performance, victory celebrations are rare.
But Tuesday was a different as the mood in the party headquarters swung from nervous excitement when the initial hour of counting showed the party leading to a sense of satisfaction.
While the trends keep changing, small group of Congress supporters questioned EVMs and how they have helped the BJP in every election. Party’s official spokespersons and panelists were giving out various statistics how their vote share and seats have gone up despite a high voltage campaign led by Modi.
The sensex which was up nearly 400 points on the prospect of the BJP crossing the halfway mark, shed all its gain by end of the day and closed 12 points lower to 35,543, and Nifty ended at 10,801, down 4.75 points.
The Indian rupee too followed the stock market and fell below the 68 mark for the first time since January 2017, closing at 68.07 level. The currency opened lower by 17 paise at 67.68 per dollar against previous close of 67.51.