New Delhi, May 10: The eagerly anticipated exit poll conducted by C-Voter for ABP News suggests that the Congress, the main opposition party in Karnataka, is tantalizingly close to achieving a simple majority in the southern state, which held elections on Wednesday.
Contrary to earlier projections and various forecasts by political analysts, the ruling BJP is performing better than expected, though it is trailing the Congress and is unlikely to retain power.
The JD(S), the third force in this triangular contest, is projected to be a distant third and appears to be in danger of becoming a marginal player in the state.
According to the ABP/C-Voter Exit Poll data, the Congress is likely to secure between 100 and 112 seats in the elections. A party needs 113 seats for a simple majority in the 224-member Karnataka Assembly.
In the 2018 Assembly elections, the Congress had won 80 seats. Based on the exit poll data, the Congress is projected to garner 41.1 percent of the vote share, which is a 3.1 percent increase compared to its share in the 2018 elections.
The surprise lies in the projected performance of the ruling BJP. The C-Voter opinion polls conducted in March and April had indicated strong anti-incumbency sentiments against the BJP government. However, the party seems to have made a recovery.
According to the exit poll data, the BJP is expected to win between 83 and 95 seats. In 2018, the party had won 104 seats. The projected vote share for the BJP is 38.3 percent, which is 2.3 percent higher than its 2018 vote share of 36 percent.
With both the Congress and the BJP gaining in vote share, the JD(S) appears to be the losing party. The projected vote share for the JD(S) is 14.6 percent, marking a decline of 3.4 percent compared to 2018. The party is projected to win between 21 and 29 seats.
The election results will be announced on May 13.
