As voting for the Karnataka Assembly elections came to a close, the bulk of exit polls gave the Congress an advantage, with three of them showing a clear majority for the grand old party in a close race with the governing BJP. Election results will be announced on May 13.
While News24-Today’s Chanakya exit poll predicted that the grand old party would win 120 seats, India Today-Axis My India predicted that Congress would win between 122 and 140 seats. The BJP, now in power, is expected to secure a majority in the 224-member House by only one pollster, News Nation-CGS.
Most polls indicated that the JD(S) might win 20 or more seats. The party won thirty-seven seats in the 2018 elections. Karnataka is the first southern state where the BJP has successfully formed a government. Since the 1970s, voters in Karnataka have never returned an incumbent administration to office after serving a five-year term.
Before the 2024 Karnataka Assembly elections, the Congress hopes to make a significant comeback while the BJP seeks to retake power, bolstered by a successful campaign headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Six of the eight multiple exit polls conducted in 2018 and broadcast by six national television networks and one regional network indicated that the BJP would win the most seats in the new Assembly.
HD Deve Gowda
Image Source: Deccan Herald
All these polls indicated that the JD(S), expected to win between 20 and 40 seats, would be the decisive factor in the election. Seven of them, however, projected that neither the BJP nor the Congress would win the necessary 112 seats for a simple majority, resulting in a hung assembly. The incumbent BJP, Congress, and JD(S) contested the elections in a high-stakes manner. By 5 PM, 66% of eligible voters had cast ballots, according to the Election Commission.
