New Delhi:
Performing much better than what the exit polls predicted and what it did in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has touched the 30-mark on its own while the BJP-led NDA is leading on 350 seats, as per the trends available for 542 seats at 02:25 pm.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the NDA had bagged 336 seats while the BJP had won 282 seats -- 10 more than the majority mark of 272 seats in the 543-member Assembly.
The results are a reflection of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity across almost all parts of the country, his government's work in the last five years focusing on development and the BJP's aggressive political campaign centered around national security and nationalism.
In the politically critical state of Uttar Pradesh, where the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party combine had posed a stiff challenge, the BJP was leading in 57 of the 80 seats at stake. The SP was ahead in eight and BSP in 11. Although the BJP had won 71 seats in the last elections, the performance is much better than what many exit polls had forecast.
The Congress Party was ahead only in one seat in Uttar Pradesh. Even, Congress President Rahul Gandhi was trailing BJP's Smriti Irani in Amethi by nearly 7,000 votes but was clearly ahead in Wayanad in Kerala with a lead of more than 1 lakh votes.
The Modi wave not only swept through the Hindi heartland and Gujarat, as was expected, but also rippled through West Bengal, Odisha, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Only Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh appeared untouched. Even in Telangana, where it was expected to fare poorly, the BJP was ahead in four seats, the same as the Telangana Rashtra Samiti.
The trends were staggering for BJP in the Hindi-speaking states, including those where Congress had won in the recent Assembly elections. In Madhya Pradesh, BJP was ahead in 28 out of 29 seats with a vote percentage of nearly 60. In Rajasthan it was leading in all but one of 25 seats. Similarly in Chattisgarh, BJP was ahead in nine compared to Congress' 2 seats. Haryana also is expected to send nine BJP MPs out of 10.
