Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls: Leaders ask Cong workers not to lose heart on predictions, asks them to be alert on counting day

New Delhi: With some exit poll predictions dampening the spirits of party workers in Madhya Pradesh, senior Congress leaders on Friday sought to instill confidence in them and asked its functionaries not to let their guard down during the counting of votes anticipating defeat.

Senior Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh sought to debunk the Axis My India exit poll, which predicted 140-162 seats for the BJP, while General Secretary and state in-charge Randeep Surjewala claimed the saffron party is relying on one survey to create a perception that it is winning the elections.

Three exit polls – Axis My India, CNX (140-159) and Today's Chanakya (151 -- +/-12) – predicted a huge victory to the BJP, while CVoter claimed BJP's defeat with 88-112 and Congress getting 113-137 seats. The half way mark in Madhya Pradesh is 116.

Polstrat also predicted an edge for Congress (111-121) while predicting a close fight with BJP (106-111). P-Marq (Congress and BJP -- 103-122 each) and Jann Ki Baat (Congress 102-125 and BJP 100-123) predicted a close fight.

Congress was hoping to overthrow the BJP, which has been in power for 18 years in MP, but a spirited campaign by the saffron party appeared to have made the contest close.

Sensing unease among the workers, Surjewala issued an appeal through a post on 'X' in which he expressed confidence that the Congress was winning more than 135 of the 230 seats, signalling the “defeat of both the BJP and survey”.

Surjewala alleged that the BJP has “bad intentions of putting pressure” on the administration on the day of counting and "one clearly sees an example of this from the attempt to tamper with the postal ballot of Balaghat".

“You can clearly read the happiness of this (Congress') victory on the faces of the people of the state. Only the formalities of counting of votes are left on December 3, but you have to remain alert…so that the counting of votes can be done impartially,” he said.

Warning officials with “bad intentions” and “thinking of influencing the election results”, he said the arm of the law is very long and the next Congress government will register FIR and take administrative action against those who break the law.

He said this election was between the people of MP and the "scams and failures" of the BJP and he could confidently say that the former will win. “The BJP is relying on a so-called survey, which the agency itself does not have trust because the BJP government has broken the trust of people,” he said.