#Verdict2014: Ab Ki Baar, Modi Sarkaar

With the voting for 543 Lok Sabha seats ending on Monday, May 12, and counting to be done on Friday, May 16, the media has been tirelessly presenting their exit polls to the viewers. There was actually a rush to start the exit polls after the longest election in the Indian history ended at 5 PM and the Election Commission gave a nod to TV channels for a time slot of 6.30 PM.

Exit polls – or survey of voters as they come out of polling booth to find out whom they voted for – may or may not be right. As was the case in 2004, most of the exit polls ad showed Bhartiya Janata Party in a good spot and had predicted a National Democratic Alliance win. But Congress-led United Progressive Alliance came to power and remained in centre for 10 years.

This year, the early poll trends have made pollsters predict that BJP alone will get enough seat to provide a stable government with NDA forming the government. If the BJP and its pre-election allies can win an outright majority, it will be the best showing by a single group since Congress and its allies won 414 seats in 1984, when the assassination of then-prime minister Indira Gandhi created a swell of public sympathy for the party.

Pollsters have predicted a big loss for the grand old Congress and the report for newbie Aam Aadmi Party is also not good. While Congress is looking at seats somewhere near 100, which is worst than its last bad performance of 114 seats in 1999, AAP may clinch 5-7 seats. Its leader Arvind Kejriwal, standing against BJP prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi, is already being touted to lose his deposit from Varanasi.

On the overall tally, the CNN-IBN-CSDS poll says:

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All India (543 seats): NDA 270-282 seats (BJP 230-242), UPA 92-102 seats (Congress 72-82) #Verdict2014 pic.twitter.com/PfGYHvltXL

— CNN-IBN News (@ibnlive) May 12, 2014

 

The ABP-AC Nielsen poll gives NDA 281, but TimesNow predicts 249 for the centre-right coalition, while pollster Chanakya foresees a decisive 340 seats. Another poll, by Cicero for the India Today group, shows the NDA gathering between 261 and 283 seats.

The Congress party had been targeting Modi specifically but its overall campaigning has been weak. As the polls indicate, Congress scion Rahul Gandhi’s campaigning made almost no impact. In fact their campaign strategies dented their image more than ever helping BJP and Modi.

Similar is the scenario with AAP. Their brief stint at the national capital and off-late their strategy of targeting Modi rather than popularizing its core agenda of anti-corruption, seems to have harmed them.

The big picture that pollsters are presenting diminishes the figure of third front and other regional parties. And they confirm that the much contested “Modi-wave’ is actually present.

Stock markets have in recent days hit record highs on hopes that the exit polls would show the BJP and its allies winning a majority, boosted by both Modi’s pro-business image and the prospect of an end to the coalition governments that have slowed the pace of reform in recent years.

The Nifty index breached the psychologically key level of 7,000 points for the first time on Monday, breaking a record high of 6,871.35 that it hit on Friday. The benchmark BSE Sensex hit an all-time high and the rupee touched its strongest levels in 10 months on Monday. Several analysts expect the rally to continue through the week.

The exit polls and debates upon it will continue till the results come out. Till then, the verdict of 2014 is proving BJP slogan right: Ab Ki Baar, Modi Sarkaar.