NEW DELHI: The Congress is likely to form the next government in Haryana while the NC in alliance with the grand old party may emerge as the single-largest grouping in a hung J&K Assembly, a majority of the exit polls have indicated.
In Haryana, the pollsters say the Congress may end BJP’s 10-year rule by winning around 55 seats, way higher than the majority mark of 45 in the 90-seat Assembly.
According to Republic Matrize, the Congress may win big in Haryana with 55 to 62 seats, with the Republic TV-P Marq poll also giving it 51 to 61 seats. The India Today-C Voter exit poll has predicted 50 to 58 seats for the Congress and 20 to 28 seats for the BJP.
Interestingly, some exit polls don’t see Dushyant Chautala’s Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), which formed the government in alliance with the BJP after bagging 10 seats in the 2019 elections, even winning a single seat.
While Republic TV-P Marq and NDTV poll of polls have said the JJP will not open its account, Republic-Matrize has predicted the regional outfit winning zero to three seats.
The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), out of which JJP had been formed after a split in the Chautala family, isn’t placed any better and is predicted to win only two seats.
Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party, exit polls indicate, may not be able to open its account, despite its rule in neighbouring Delhi and Punjab.
The situation in the 90-member J&K Assembly, to which the elections were held after a decade, throws up interesting possibilities given the prediction of a hung House.
The exit polls see the NC-Congress alliance ending up with 41 seats. The BJP’s projected score of 27 may put it far behind the majority mark to stich up an alliance with smaller parties or Independents.
The BJP’s erstwhile ally, Mehbooba Mufti’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is likely to win seven seats and is hoping to emerge as the kingmaker.
The party has ruled out any possibility of a tie-up with the BJP, talking only in terms of a “secular alliance”.
The BJP-PDP alliance, formed after yet another split verdict in 2014, fell through in 2018 after which the state was placed under the President’s rule.
In 2019, J&K was split into two Union Territories — a situation the BJP has promised to reverse in its third term at the Centre.
The ball may thus be in the court of the NC and Congress to send feelers to the PDP. But the hurdle here is the historic rivalry between the NC and PDP, which have always been competing for the votes in the Kashmir valley.