Here’s why the BJP is still so confident that it will win Madhya Pradesh, despite the gloomy exit polls
Hours before counting begins, all eyes in the BJP are locked on Madhya Pradesh where, despite the gloomy exit poll predictions, the party brass believes that a stronger organisational set-up will ultimately help it cross the victory line on December 11.
According to a deep dive done by the data team of India Today, the verdict in Madhya Pradesh on December 11 is likely to depend on the final outcome in the 50 seats which the India Today-Axis My India poll suggests will be won or lost with a margin of less than 3%.
Whichever party is able to walk away with a major chunk of these 50 closely fought seats is likely to emerge victorious in the semi-final sweepstakes.
Of the 230 seats in Madhya Pradesh, the Axis My India exit poll shows the Congress safely in the lead on 91 seats. The BJP is not too far behind, with the exit poll showing the party sitting pretty on 83 seats — the gap between the Congress and the BJP is only 8 seats.
The magic figure in the MP assembly is 116. The BJP needs to bag at least 33 of the seats where tight fights are being witnessed to cross the hump, while the Congress needs to win 25 of the seats classified as tight fights to be able to form the government in Madhya Pradesh.
The BJP’s firm belief is that the extra voting witnessed on November 28 is because of the heavy mobilisation carried out by the party’s panna-pramukhs on each booth in the state. In 2013, MP recorded 72.07% voting. In 2018, the voting percentage has gone up to 75.05% — which represents a 3% increase in voter turnout.
Going by conventional electoral wisdom, a heavier-than-usual turnout usually spells trouble for sitting governments which are facing strong anti-incumbency. But BJP President Amit Shah believes that his booth-wise election management model has upturned traditional poll calculations and a lot of the additional voters are being brought out of their homes because of the massive poll mobilisation being carried out by the BJP cadre on the ground.
The BJP is confident about its fortunes on Tuesday because of its belief that the present exit poll models do not capture the effect of the additional votes. BJP strategists believe that it is this same additional vote that helped the BJP in a closely fought battle in Gujarat and ensured that the BJP ends up ahead of the Congress in Karnataka.
While Madhya Pradesh seems headed for a close finish, the same exit poll modelling shows that the BJP is unlikely to be able to win again in Rajasthan or Chhattisgarh. Out of the 199 seats of Rajasthan, the Congress is clearly in the lead in 105 seats. The party needs 100 seats to form the next government in the state. The BJP leads in 44, with 46 seats classified as close fights.
Even if the BJP manages to bag all the seats which are witnessing a close fight, its tally will go up to 90. This will still be 10 short of the magic number required to form the government in the state.
In Chhattisgarh as well, the Congress is shown leading comfortably in 57 of the 90 seats in the state. The magic figure required to form the next government is 46. The BJP is leading on 15 and there are tight fights on 14 seats. Even if the BJP wins all the seats where tight fights are being witnessed, its tally goes up only to 29, which is far from the majority mark.
In the 119 seats of Telangana, the TRS leads comfortably on 60 seats, which gives it a simple majority. The Congress-TDP alliance is leading only on 25, the AIMIM on 6, and the BJP on 1. There are 27 seats where the gap between the winner and the runner-up is projected to be less than 3%.
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