BJP waits, buoyant; Congress stakes high

With less than 24 hours to go for the Assembly poll results to be out in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, both the Congress and the BJP are waiting with bated breath. The BJP senses an outside chance in Assam and is keen to open its account in the northeastern state, while a loss for the Congress, particularly in Assam and Kerala, could lead to further political uncertainty for it.

The BJP is buoyed by the exit poll results, which have unanimously handed over Assam to it, and that too with a clear majority of its own in a House of 126 MLAs. If that happens, it would not only open the doors of the northeast to the saffron party, but also break its pariah status in other states of the region.

Most of the exit polls have also predicted victory for the DMK-Congress alliance in Tamil Nadu.

Though these predictions set off a flood of reactions on social media, with journalists like Rajdeep Sardesai and Bhupendra Chaubey even doubting the predictions by agencies linked to their own television channels, in at least one state. While none of them named any particular state in their comments, there has been speculation that it could either be Assam or Tamil Nadu (where pollsters have predicted a win for the DMK-Congress alliance).

Going by the exit polls’ prediction of a BJP victory in Assam, the Congress may be the biggest loser in such a scenario, as the Northeast has been its home turf for decades, before breakaway regional outfits ate into its monopoly and ousted it from Sikkim and Nagaland.

With a Congress-led government recently ousted under controversial circumstances in Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura being a Left bastion, it now holds power in Meghalaya, Mizoram and Manipur, besides Assam.

While winning Assam could encourage the BJP to try its luck in Manipur, Mizoram and Meghalaya, where till date, due to the tribal Christian dominance in these states, it was almost considered an untouchable party, such an outcome would weaken the Congress in the region, political observers said.

The Congress is already out of power in major Hindi belt states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, and is ruling only smaller states like Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in northern India.

If the Congress-led United Democratic Front loses in Kerala, as has been predicted by the exit polls, it would only be left with the hill states in the north and the three northeastern states. Besides these, the Congress is in power only in the southern state of Karnataka.

The Congress, therefore, appears to be staring at an existential crisis as losing Assam and Kerala will leave it only with six states in its kitty.

There is some solace for the Congress, though, in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, as the exit polls have predicted the DMK-Congress alliance will win in both of these.

The BJP, though a perennial outsider in all four states where the Assembly polls were held in the past month, will not only gain significantly in the Northeast if it wins in Assam, it will also get a shot in the arm if it manages to open its account in West Bengal and Kerala, where it now has no presence.

The exit polls have predicted between five to 14 seats for the BJP in West Bengal, a state where it doesn’t exist in the current Assembly. In Kerala, they predicted two to four seats for the saffron party, where again it has no members in the current Assembly.

West Bengal appears to be maintaining the status quo, as the exit polls predicted a major victory for the ruling Trinamul Congress. While the TMC has 184 seats in the 294-member Assembly, most of the exit polls have predicted similar numbers, and perhaps even more, for the Mamata Banerjee-led party.