Election Commission officials said counting of votes, which will commence at 8 am, will be over by 3 pm.
Counting of votes in the high-stakes Assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry will begin shortly and the first trends are expected to be available by 9 am. By 12 noon, a clear picture could emerge on the winners. Election Commission officials said counting of votes, which will commence at 8 am, will be over by 3 pm.
Here is all you need to know:
Exit polls at the end of five-state elections on Monday evening predicted a Trinamool sweep in West Bengal, a BJP win in Assam, a Left victory in Kerala, but the verdict was split over Tamil Nadu, with advantage to the DMK, which is also tipped to win in Puducherry along with Congress.
The India Today-Axis exit poll has given 79-93 seats to the BJP combine, 26-33 to the Congress and 6-10 to the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF).
If the BJP wins Assam, it will be the saffron party’s first ever government in India’s northeast.
West Bengal is all set to buck the trend by voting in Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee with a slightly reduced majority.
While the Trinamool Congress is expected to win 233-253 of 294 seats in West Bengal, the Congress-Left alliance is likely to be reduced to 38-51 seats. In 2011, Mamata’s party had won 184 seats.
The exit polls were divided over Tamil Nadu. Three surveys predicted a defeat for Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK. But a fourth said she would retain power comfortably, winning 139 of the 234 seats.
The India Today-Axis poll has predicted that the AIADMK will win 89-101 of 234 seats in the state as opposed to Karunanidhi’s DMK getting a clear majority with 124-140 seats.
In Kerala, the Left is set to return to power. The India Today-Axis poll has given 88-101 seats to the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the 140-member House and 38-48 to the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). The BJP could get zero to three seats while one to four seats may go to others.
Exit polls have predicted a win for the DMK-Congress alliance in Puducherry too, ousting the ruling All India NR Congress.
The counting of votes will decide the fate of approximately 8,300 candidates, including chief ministers Tarun Gogoi, Jayalalithaa, Oommen Chandy, Mamata Banerjee and M Rangaswamy. It may also see the rise of BJP’s Sarbananda Sonowal and Himanta Biswas in Assam, M Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu, and VS Achutanandan and Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala.
