SHILLONG, Feb 28: The exit polls may have predicted a hung Assembly but the NPP believes it will attain absolute majority when the election results are declared on March 2.
The exit polls have put the NPP ahead of the pack with one agency giving the party a maximum of 26 seats. The magical number is 31 in the 60-member House.
NPP state president, WR Kharlukhi said his party is confident of winning a targeted 25 seats and there are 24 more in which it has given a tough fight.
He gave the BJP 6 seats at most and not the 10-11 the exit polls have predicted.
The BJP and the regional coalition partners in the MDA government had attacked the NPP for alleged corruption and irregularities.
“The corruption issue was raked up because of the elections,” Kharlukhi said, adding the exit polls indicate the people of Meghalaya voted for the MDA.
He said Congress is no longer the force it was in 2018.
“The party lost space the day Mukul Sangma decided to go to the Trinamool Congress,” he said, predicting 5-6 seats for the TMC.
UDP upbeat
Senior United Democratic Party leader, Allantry Dkhar said the exit polls seemed to have been influenced to a certain extent. The mood on the ground is different from what the exit polls came up with, he claimed.
He said the BJP could get more seats but the party has a long way to go to be acceptable in Meghalaya unlike in Assam.
“We expect 15-plus seats for the UDP,” he said, adding that the numbers would decide the coalition partners in the next government.
With more than 15 seats, the UDP would like to lead the government and prove to be better than the national parties in the state, he claimed.
Dkhar said the TMC may do better than expected, particularly in the Garo Hills region where it may upset the NPP’s calculations. He did not give Congress much of a chance.
‘BJP will spring a surprise’
State BJP president, Ernest Mawrie said the party held a video conference to assess the performance of all its candidates. The assessment has not been completed, he said.
For the first time, the BJP contested all 60 seats in Meghalaya and top party leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and national president J.P. Nadda campaigned extensively.
“Our seat count will shock most of the political commentators,” the BJP’s national general secretary, Rituraj Sinha said.
He, however, was not ready with party’s final internal assessment.