Rahul Gandhi hopes for Bihar ‘victory’ encore in Uttar Pradesh

On Friday, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi expressed confidence of winning the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

New Delhi, March 10: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Friday dismissed the results of various exit polls--giving maximum number of seats to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

When reporters asked him to comment on the exit poll results, Rahul said, "Our alliance is winning. Such exit polls we saw in Bihar also. We will talk tomorrow."

During the Bihar Assembly elections in 2015, pollsters predicted the BJP to win the state. Contrary to the exit poll reports, the grand alliance of the Janata Dal (United), the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress emerged victorious with a thumping majority. For the UP Assembly elections, the Congress has forged an alliance with the ruling Samajwadi Party. Like in Bihar, the Congress is a junior partner in the UP alliance.

According to all the exit poll predictions--announced on Thursday-- the BJP would emerge as the single largest party in UP. Two exit poll results gave the party a complete sweep to form the next government in the state. Three results--HuffPost-CVoter, MRC-NewsX and Lokniti-ABP--gave the BJP fewer than 200 seats in UP, while Times Now-VMR gave the party between 190-210 seats. However, Today's Chanakya and India Today - Axis My India gave the party a massive majority. In UP, a party needs 202 seats to form the government.

On Thursday, in an interview with BBC Hindi, SP president Akhilesh Yadav indicted that he might join hands with the Bahujan Samaj Party--in case the alliance does not get a majority-- to form the next government in the state. "Nobody wants President's Rule, the BJP to run Uttar Pradesh by remote control," Akhilesh said in the interview.

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