Prime minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party is projected to have won Thursday’s state election in Delhi, according to exit polls.
Mr Modi’s predicted victory would end a 27-year-long drought for the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Delhi and unseat one of the country’s most prominent voices in opposition to the prime minister – Arvind Kejriwal.
About 60.39 per cent of the eligible 15 million voters in Delhi braved the “very poor” air quality on Wednesday to cast their ballot in the high-stakes election. The results will be declared on Saturday.
Exit polls, conducted by private firms, predicted the BJP would win an absolute majority in the 70-member Delhi assembly, defeating Mr Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party or AAP.
While some exit polls were still yet to be released on Wednesday, a running “poll of polls” placed the BJP on 43 seats, AAP on 26 and the Congress party with just one seat.
However, exit polls have a patchy record in India and have got the results badly wrong in the past, including at last year’s general election.
“Exit polls have always proven to be wrong for the AAP,” said party spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar. “Every time, the AAP has stormed to power with a massive mandate, and this time will be no different,” she added.
Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva welcomed the polls, saying that the party’s victory would be “more spectacular than what the exit polls have shown today”.
In 2020, the AAP won 62 of the total 70 seats, with the remaining eight going to the BJP.
AAP, which grew out of an anti-corruption movement in 2012, tasted its first electoral success in Delhi and has ruled the territory, which houses India’s parliament and federal government offices, for two consecutive terms from 2015.
Mr Kejriwal, 55, an anti-corruption crusader-turned-politician, was arrested on graft charges weeks before the general election began, and alleged a political vendetta by the Modi government. The BJP denies his arrest was politically motivated.
Mr Kejriwal was later released on bail, but resigned as chief minister to focus on campaigning for the Delhi election.
If the exit polls get it right, the BJP winning Delhi would be a crucial step in regaining electoral confidence in the party’s northern heartlands, after it lost its outright majority in last year’s national election and was forced to form a coalition government.
Mr Modi and Mr Kejriwal both campaigned vigorously for the election, with their rallies drawing thousands of supporters.
Both offered to revamp government schools and provide free health services and electricity as well as a monthly stipend of over Rs 2,000 (£18) to poor women.
The BJP was voted out of power in Delhi in 1998 and the Congress party ran the city for the next 15 years until AAP was elected to power.
