Monday (October 21): The Bharatiy Janata Party (BJP) is all set to return to power with a greater mandate in both states of Maharashtra and Haryana completely routing out the opposition, exit polls forecast.
Though exit polls varied widely in their projection of seats for the rival alliances, an emphatic victory with more than two-third seats for the BJP-led NDA in both Maharashtra and Haryana was the common theme.
The India Today-Axis exit poll projected 166-194 seats for the BJP-Shiv Sena in the 288-member Maharashtra assembly and 72-90 for the Congress-NCP alliance.
The exit poll by News18-IPSOS gave the BJP a near-majority on its own by predicting a whopping 142 seats for the party and 102 for its ally Shiv Sena. The Congress and NCP will bag 17 and 22 seats only, it has forecast.
The ABP-C Voter predicted 204 seats for the BJP-Shiv Sena and 69 for the Congress-NCP.
In Haryana, the extent of a BJP win was projected to be even more dominant.
The ABP-C Voter forecast 72 and eight seats for the BJP and the Congress respectively. The CNN-IPSOS projected 75 and 10 seats for the two parties respectively.
The poll of polls brought out by the NDA gave the BJP and the Congress 66 and 14 seats respectively in Haryana, and 211 and 64 for the saffron alliance and the Congress-NCP in Maharashtra.
Voter Turnout:
As voting ends today in polling states of Maharashtra and Haryana, both the states recording above 60 per cent turnout.
While Maharashtra saw a voter turnout of 63 per cent till 6 pm, in Haryana 65 per cent turnout was observed, down from a record 76.54 per cent in 2014.
In the 2014 elections, Maharashtra recorded 63.38 per cent turnout.
Barring some exceptions where some incidents of violence and complaints of EVM glitches reported, polling was largely peaceful in all constituencies of both states.
