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Congress may win in Maharashtra: Exit polls
The Congerss-NCP have almost 55 per cent of the vote together and a seven per cent swing is not enough to cause an upset given that the Sena-BJP seem to have less than 40 per cent seats.
Maharashtra went to polls for 24 of the 48 seats on Monday. Elections to the other 24 seats have already been held during the first phase on April 20.
While exit polls then had given both the Congress-NCP and the Shiv Sena-BJP a chance at winning the race, polls in western Maharashtra, Konkan and Mumbai seemed to have given the secular combine a lead over the saffron party.
But this was not enough to satisfy the Congress-NCP front as NCP leader Sharad Pawar reacted mildly and said that he expected the secular alliance to get at least half a dozen more than the projections.
Pawar places the final tally at around 35 and so does Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde.
However, the saffron alliance is more troubled by the results of the exit polls. The Chief Minister has openly charged BJP leader Gopinath Munde with attempting to put up a third candidate in each constituency in Maharashtra to prevent a straight fight between two alliances.
"But despite Munde's best efforts we will still beat them to it." While the figures might be disputable, Shinde might just be right, for even the exit polls show that the anti-incumbency swing against the Congress-NCP combine is still not enough to counter the heavy tilt in favour of the two after the warring parties came together.
The Congerss-NCP have almost 55 per cent of the vote together and a seven per cent swing is not enough to cause an upset given that the Sena-BJP seem to have less than 40 per cent together, with others holding the balance.
The Congress-NCP is projected to win around 28 and the Sena-BJP around 16-18, with others making the difference.
This is how most exit polls have got it.
The results are largely expected to be a toss-up and Mumbai might just have something to do with it. In 1999, the Sena-BJP got five of the six seats in the metropolis, with the Congress winning only Mumbai North West (Sunil Dutt). This time , though, all those five seats have seen a close contest and each side is keeping its fingers crossed, even if they have heavy weights running on their ticket.
