NEW DELHI, 16 February — Exit polls in two state elections placing Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of its rivals have come as a huge relief for it after weeks of negative pre-poll surveys.
A BJP leader yesterday said the exit polls conducted during voting in the hill state of Uttaranchal and in Uttar Pradesh, had backed the party’s claim that it would return to power in both states.
“All along we said, and we repeat, that the BJP will form the government in these states,” senior BJP leader J.P. Mathur said. “Both the opposition and the pollsters will have to eat their words because they said we are doomed.” Most exit polls by television news channels, including state-run Doordarshan, gave the BJP and its allies a lead in the 70-seat Uttaranchal legislature and in 92 of the 403 seats of Uttar Pradesh that went to the polls on Thursday.
They also placed the BJP and its allies ahead of key rivals — Sonia Gandhi’s Congress party in Uttaranchal and former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh. Most pre-poll surveys had forecast a BJP rout.
Exit polls in Punjab, which had voted on Wednesday, gave the Congress a landslide-win in the 117-seat legislature.
In Manipur in the northeast, which underwent one phase of polls on Thursday and completes the process on Feb. 21, pollsters expect a hung 60-seat assembly.
The remaining 311 seats in Uttar Pradesh are due to vote on Monday and on Feb. 21, when the remaining 20 seats of Manipur will also go to the polls. Votes will be counted on Feb. 24 and new governments would be sworn in soon after. Even though they involve only state assemblies, the elections are being touted as a virtual verdict on Vajpayee’s BJP-led multiparty government.
A setback, especially in Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal, which the BJP rules, could resound in New Delhi, although opinion is divided on whether the verdict would threaten Vajpayee’s government.
But the exit polls have sparked speculation that the BJP might race ahead of others, especially in Uttar Pradesh, and, even without a majority, form the government with allies as it did after the 1996 elections in the state. The Congress rejected the exit polls, pointing out that while Zee News and Aaj Tak gave the BJP a lead over it in Uttaranchal, Doordarshan said the opposition party would lead in the hill state.
“These exit polls have differed so widely that it is not easy to make any final conclusions from them,” Congress spokesman S. Jaipal Reddy said.
