PANAJI
Exit polls which were out late Monday have all predicted that the March 10 results with throw up a hung House with the two main contenders, incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress in a neck-to-neck tussle to emerge the single largest party.
According to the India Today-Axis My India Exit Poll, the Congress-Goa Forward Party alliance is predicted to bag 15-20 seats and the BJP 14-18 seats in the 40-member Assembly.
It also predicted the MGP-TMC alliance in the third spot with a likelihood of 2-5 seats and ‘others’ getting 0-4 seats.
The seat share according to ABP-News exit poll is 13-17 seats to the BJP, 12-16 seats to Congress-GFP, 1-5 seats to AAP, 5-9 seats to the MGP-TMC alliance and 0-2 seats to ‘others’.
The P-MARQ exit poll gave the BJP 17-18 seats, Congress-GFP 13-17, AAP 2-6, TMC-MGP 2-4 and ‘others’ 0-4 seats.
The BJP has been predicted to win 13-19 seats according to Jan Ki Baat-India News Exit Poll and the Congress-GFP alliance 14-19 seats. It also predicted 3-5 seats for the AAP and 1-2 seats for the MGP-TMC alliance and 1-3 seats for ‘others’.
The Times Now exit poll projects 16 seats for Congress-GFP alliance, 14 for BJP, 4 for AAP and 6 for other including the MGP-TMC alliance.
Finally the ‘poll of exit polls’ of NDTV, an aggregate of 9 exit polls said Goa might be heading for a hung assembly with both the BJP and the Congress-GFP alliance ending up with 16 seats each.
However, with the actual results more often than not deviating from Exit Poll results, the suspense of the February 14 elections where nearly 80 per-cent of Goa’s 11-lakh plus strong electorate has voted will only be broken on March 10, after the last vote is counted.
This is the first time the BJP is fighting all 40 seats and also the first time in the absence of charismatic leader Late Manohar Parrikar.
The Congress is fighting Goa Assembly elections 2022 in alliance with Goa Forward Party. As most poll pundits are predicting a fractured mandate, hectic parleys are on behind the scene for any post-poll
alliance.
For the 40 Assembly seats, there were 332 candidates in the fray. Goa voted on February 14 last month. Several restrictions were in place due to the heightened threat of Covid infections due to the Omicron-driven third wave at that time.
The official data of the Election Commission says that there are 11.6 lakh voters in Goa.
