Exit polls predict BJP gains in key Indian states, with West Bengal and Tamil Nadu among the battlegrounds.
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party appeared set for gains in crucial state elections in India, according to exit polls released Thursday ahead of final results due on May 4.
Exit polls have a patchy record in India, but they often show early markers of the final outcome.
Elections in five states and territories have taken place in April including in the major opposition-held states of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party in the national parliament, is hoping to make inroads in the opposition strongholds.
Results in all the elections — which were also held in Assam, the smaller coastal territory of Puducherry and the Communist-run Kerala — will be released on Monday.
All eyes will be on West Bengal, where the BJP waged an aggressive bid to dislodge Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the firebrand leader of the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), in power in the state since 2011.
Exit polls predict the BJP has a slight edge over TMC, and a win this time would mean the BJP gets to rule the state of over 100 million people for the first time.
Banerjee’s party won 213 of the 294 seats in the previous election held in 2021.
Past elections have resulted in violence in the state.
The campaign this time was marked by protests over the removal of millions of names from voter rolls during a Special Intensive Revision — meant to remove ineligible voters but which critics say is skewed against marginalised and minority communities.
Political activist Yogendra Yadav said there was “no way” the TMC would lose in a “fair election”.
“The only way the BJP can win is by rigging, ie, electoral malpractice of one form or the other, from voter list manipulation to counting fraud,” he said in a post on X on Wednesday.
Both in the northeastern state of Assam and southern Puducherry, the BJP-led alliance is widely expected to be re-elected.
Wins in the state elections will put Modi on a stronger footing while battling a series of economic and foreign policy challenges, including high unemployment rate and a pending US trade deal.
In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, a key industrial hub with with more than 80 million people, exit polls predict the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) under Chief Minister MK Stalin will hold onto power.
But the polls also predict debutant actor-turned politician C. Joseph Vijay from the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam party to emerge as a strong opponent to the traditional parties in the state, including DMK.
And it would be a tightly contested race in Kerala, the only state in the country ruled by communists, with a Congress-led alliance expected to win this time.
