The BJP will form the next government but it has squeaked home by a much smaller majority than it was hoping for. It took hits in two of the county’s biggest states – Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. In Bengal, where the polls appeared to be going the BJP’s way there was a sudden turnaround in the early afternoon.

The BJP – at the time of writing – has won (inlcuding leads) 245 seats on its own and will depend on its two ageing allies, Andhra Pradesh’s N. Chandrababu Naidu and Bihar’s Nitish Kumar, to form the new government. Naidu and Nitish between them have 30 seats. The NDA alliance had about 295 seats which was around 60 seats below what had been predicted by the exit polls on Saturday. The India alliance has about 231 and the Congress has picked up around 99 seats.

Several celebrity politicians faced bitter battles and in Amethi giant-slayer Smriti Irani, who defeated Rahul Gandhi five years ago, crashed to a defeat against Gandhi family loyalist Kishore Lal. In Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor defeated the BJP’s Rajiv Chandrasekhar in a bitter three-way contest. Tharoor finally surged ahead when coastal voters swung in his favour.

Rahul Gandhi won in both his constituencies, Wayanad in Kerala and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh where he smashed home by a huge 3.88 lakh.

Modi will be Prime Minister for a record third time but he will be heavily reliant on allies like Naidu and Nitish, who are both certain to extract their pound of flesh in exchange for their support. Modi will be flying to Hyderabad tomorrow for Naidu’s swearing in ceremony.

Early in the day, it had appeared that the BJP would trounce Mamata Banerjee but there was a dramatic turnaround after a few hours and the Trinamul Congress grabbed 29 seats, leaving the BJP with half-a-dozen seats less than it had won in the last election.

In a day of many winners and losers, the biggest star of the day could well be Akhilesh Yadav, whose Samajwadi Party (SP) put in a stunning performance by winning 36 seats compared to the BJP’s 33 seats. The Congress won seven seats which also beat all predictions. The exit polls had predicted that the BJP would win almost 70 seats. Mayawati’s BSP crashed out without a single seat and their supporters appeared to have voted tactically and switched to backing the SP.

In Maharashtra, two strongmen Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar showed they could still bring in the seats. The Maha Vikas Adhadi alliance of the Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress and the NCP (SC) have done even better than expected and is likely to win 29 out of 42 seats in the state.

By late afternoon, Sharad Pawar told reporters that he was reaching out to both Naidu and Nitish Kumar.

Source The Telegraph 

BDST: 2021 HRS, JUNE 4, 2024
MSK