NEW DELHI, Dec 1
As Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel stuck to his claim that the Congress will win 75 of the 90 seats, eight different exit polls aired by news channels on Thursday showed the party was in the lead in the state.
Although each of the polls predicted a much higher vote share for the BJP, they all also kept the Congress ahead of the BJP.
The BJP got a minimum of 30 seats in an exit poll aired on India TV while Cvoter predicted the party may get a maximum of 48 seats and minimum of 36. The ruling Congress got a minimum of 40 seats in a prediction by Aaj Tak channel. It gave them a maximum of 50 seats. The highest seat prediction for Congress was made by News 24 Today’s Chanakya who gave it 57 seats while 33 was given to BJP.
When asked by media about Chanakya exit polls giving Congress 57 seats, CM Baghel said, “That 57 digit will be interchanged to 75.” On operation lotus (a term used for poaching done by BJP to form government), Baghel said, “There will be no need for it and they will not be able to do it. We believe in our hard work and have faith in the public.”
Three time chief minister of Chhattisgarh, Raman Singh, is confident of returning to power. Reacting to the exit polls, Singh said, “It is the result of Congress’s misdeeds that Congress, which had won 68 seats in the last assembly elections, is seen falling straight to 40 seats in the exit polls today.”
“The people of Chhattisgarh have seen the good governance of BJP for the last 15 years, have seen development and have believed in the guarantees of Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji, due to which the seats of BJP which were 15 in the last assembly elections have increased to 48 in this exit poll. This is only an exit poll, when the election results come on December 3, BJP will form the government with 52-55 seats and Congress is going to go below 35 seats,” Singh added. Even as the Congress stuck to its 75 seats claim, senior Congress leader and Chhattisgarh Deputy Chief Minister, T S Singh Deo said his party will get 60 seats and will feel hurt if the Congress gets less than that as they have worked hard. In the 2018 elections, the Congress won the election for the first time since the state was formed in 2000.
Since 2003, the BJP won three consecutive elections (2003, 2008, 2013) but were handed a massive defeat when Congress won 68 seats while BJP ended up with 15 seats.
In 2018, the BJP’s vote share came down to 32.97 per cent with 47.06 lakh votes while the Congress’s vote share rose to 43.04 per cent with 61.43 lakh votes, creating a huge margin of 10.1 per cent when the margin had never been more than 3 per cent since the state was formed in 2000.
