What do the exit polls for state elections mean for investors?

He further said that the Congress has no existence in Uttar Pradesh, adding that the Samajwadi Party would be vanished from the state.

India will get a hint today of whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s magic still works.

BJP leaders obviously had great reason to celebrate a historic victory not seen since 1951 when Premier (as chief minister was known then) helped Congress win 388 of 425 seats. Women gathered in groups to watch results on TV danced as the results came in. This was clearly high-stake election from the Prime Minster which required him to invest so much time and energy in a state Assembly poll. A better than expected showing by a third party could complicate the picture as results filter out.

Though it was premature to call the outcome, the election commission put the BJP leading in 262 of the 403 seats in the state, putting it on course for a large majority. A victory for the BJP there would be seen as purely a statement of Modi’s enduring popularity.

The state witness heinous crime like Bulandshahar rape incident and on this note other political parties in their campaigns had lashed out several times at the Akhilesh Yadav government for the deteriorating law-and -order situation in the state.

In UP, neither Mayawati nor Akhilesh Yadav are personally contesting the polls but numerous state ministers from SP and senior leaders of BSP are in fray.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi acknowledged that the party’s defeat was massive. “These have to be hard, tough decisions about strategy”, Singhvi said. Senior Congress leader and party’s UP general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad said, “The SP-Congress alliance will win the UP elections despite the exit poll claims”. However, the SAD-BJP coalition’s show can’t be termed too bad as predicted by some exit polls. Ameeta Singh (Cong), the current wife of Sanjay Sinh, was also trailing. This could be interpreted that BSP vote bank (21% in the state) remained intact but other smaller castes aligned with BSP following social engineering done by Kanshiram and later Mayawati has moved away from the party fold. Muslim women have also benefitted from the schemes.

While the SP-BSP was at pains to explain to all that demonetisation was “all pain and no gain”, the BJP underplayed the “pain” and touted the “gain” as Modi’s fight against corruption – to give the poor its rightful share in the country’s growth story. While some like the BJP and BSP traded charges, the Congress hit back at pollsters for having no good news for it. Goa not only has possibility of slipping out of BJP’s hands, it also delivered a major setback to the party in the dream run it had elsewhere. Akali Dal-BJP combine gets just 4 to 7 seats, while the AAP a close second with between 42-51 seats.

While the BJP is leading in Konthoujam, Chandel and Thangmeiband, the Congress is leading in Lilong.

The BJP meet was headed by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and attended by state party president Vinay Tendulkar as well as Chief Minister, Laxmikant Parsekar. While the actual results will not be out till Saturday, the exit polls usually (though not always) can be an indicator of which party will storm to power. Former Chief Minister Digambar Kamat (Congress) won from Margao constituency. In 1993, the party won 177 assembly seats with a vote share of 33.03 percent. Rights activist Irom Sharmila, making her poll debut, was relegated to the fourth position.