Delhi Assembly Elections 2025 | Pollsters predict a BJP comeback while denying AAP hat-trick; Congress in tatters

New Delhi: Eight of 16 exit polls on Wednesday predicted BJP returning to power in Delhi after a gap of 27 years, ending ten years of Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP’s hegemony in the national capital’s political landscape that was catapulted by an anti-corruption movement.

Of the remaining eight, four predictions gave AAP a clear chance of retaining power while both parties shared the prospects of winning in a close contest. Congress, which was hoping for a revival even at the expense of its I.N.D.I.A. ally, could win only a couple of seats at the maximum.

Exit polls indicated that the Congress may almost double its vote share of 4.26% in 2020 to 8-9% and this could be one of the reasons for AAP losing some seats.

In the past, exit poll predictions had gone wrong, as one saw in the Lok Sabha elections when many of them predicted over 300 seats for the BJP and over 350 for the NDA.

After a bitter campaign, at least 60.44% of 1.56 crore had queued up at polling stations spread across 70 constituencies during the day to choose their MLAs in a triangular fight between AAP, BJP and Congress, amid allegations and counter allegations against each other.

Senior AAP leader and Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj rejected the exit polls saying the predictions in 2013 and 2015 had claimed that his party had lost and in 2020, it gave less numbers than what it actually won. “Now also, our seats are being shown less. AAP is going to form the government with a huge majority and all these exit polls will be proved wrong,” he said.

The exit polls gave the BJP a maximum of 60 seats as one saw in Peoples Pulse while minimum was 18 in Journo Mirror’s prediction. AAP’s minimum was 10 in Peoples Pulse while the maximum was 52 in WeePreside poll.

The eight predictions that gave BJP a clear edge were the polls conducted by Peoples Pulse (51-60), People’s Insight (40-44), JVC (39-45), Chanakya Strategies (39-44), PMarq (39-49), Poll Diary (42-50), DV Research (36-44) and SAS Group (38-41).

For AAP, the lowest was by Peoples Pulse (10-19) while others gave it in a range of 18-31. These polls gave Congress 0-3.

Polls conducted by WeePreside (46-52), Mind Brink (44-49), Journo Mirror (45-48) and KK Surveys and Strategies (44) gave AAP a clear edge while they gave BJP 18-26 seats and Congress 0-1.

Interestingly, rightwing Sudarshan TV, which conducted an exit poll with Prabodhan gave a close fight giving BJP a marginal edge at 34-37 seats and AAP 33-36 seats. Congress could win 0-2 seats.

Other polls that predicted close fights were Matrize, which also gave BJP a slight edge at 35-40 while AAP could close in with 32-37.

Zee-AI predicted an AAP edge (33-38) in a close fight against BJP’s 31-36 and ICPL too has the same figure. However, they differed on Congress numbers as the former gave 0-2 seats and latter 0-1.

Delhi Assembly Election 2025 | The first of two state assembly polls this year sees a three-way contest between AAP, Congress, and BJP in the nation's capital. AAP decided to contest the polls alone, causing rumours of a rift in I.N.D.I.A. BJP, meanwhile, is hoping the liquor excise policy scam and pollution in Delhi will give the saffron party an edge over AAP. Kejriwal, on the other hand, has different plans with his demand for reservations for Delhi Jats. Congress will also be looking to make its presence felt and has not held back from attacking its own alliance partner. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.

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