In the first phase of polls that covered 58 assembly constituencies across 11 districts in western Uttar Pradesh, the BJP is predicted to win 49 seats. (India Today/ Rahul Gupta)
India Today-Axis My India exit polls predicted a comfortable win for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh across the regions. The areas which saw year-long farmers’ agitation over the three agri-reforms laws brought by the Narendra Modi government, too, gave the BJP lead over its principal rival, the Samajwadi Party (SP).
The seven-phase Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls began from western Uttar Pradesh, which was the epicentre of farmers’ agitation in the state. In the first phase of polls that covered 58 assembly constituencies across 11 districts in western Uttar Pradesh, the BJP is predicted to win 49 seats. The Samajwadi Party is predicted to win just eight seats while the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) looks set to win the other seat.
In 2017, the BJP had won 53 of these seats. The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party had won two seats each while the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) got one seat.
This means that despite the farmers’ agitation and reports of polarisation against the BJP, the party is likely to finish with only three less seats.
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The Congress had failed to secure a single victory in these 58 seats in 2017 when it had contested the polls in alliance with the Samajwadi Party. The Congress, led by party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in the assembly polls, is unlikely to open its account for the second time in a row in the constituencies that went to the polls in the first phase.
The story looks similar for the seats that went to the polls in the second phase in which 55 constituencies voted. Of these seats, India Today-Axis My India exit polls predicted the BJP to win 32 seats.
The Samajwadi Party is predicted to do fairly well in the region that had several seats dominated by Muslim voters. The party is likely to win 22 seats, according to the exit polls.
The BSP is predicted to win one seat from the second phase of UP Assembly polls.
In 2017, the BJP had won 38 of 55 seats. The Samajwadi Party had won 15 seats while the Congress won two seats. The BSP and the RLD had failed to win a single seat in 2017 in these constituencies.
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Including some of the seats that voted in the third phase of UP polls, the entire western Uttar Pradesh has 136 seats. Of these seats, India Today-Axis My India exit polls predicted the BJP to win 98 seats. The Samajwadi Party is predicted to win 36 while the BSP is likely to win the other two seats.
If the results shown in the exit polls stay true on March 10, when the Election Commission will count the votes polled in all seven phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls that ended on Monday, the BJP appears to have escaped almost unscathed from the farmers’ agitation.
This could be a setback for the SP-RLD, which counted heavily on the sentiments evoked during the farmers’ agitation. The Samajwadi Party broke its alliance with the Congress, its 2017 partner, and did not repeat its coalition with the BSP, the 2019 Lok Sabha election ally, joined hands with the RLD, hoping to gain from farmers’ agitation against the BJP-led central government.
The SP-RLD alliance was hoping to trounce the BJP not only in the region of farmers’ agitation and through this the entire Uttar Pradesh. But exit polls predict a massive win for the BJP, which is likely to win 288-326 seats in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly.
No party or alliance has come back to power in the UP assembly election in about 20 years.
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