‘Don’t lose sleep over it’: Amit Malviya, Manoj Tiwari gung-ho despite exit poll predicting comfortable victory for AAP

On Saturday evening, exit polls for the Delhi Assembly elections predicted that the ruling Aam Aadmi Party would return with a comfortable majority.

Reacting to the news, BJP IT Cell chief, Amit Malviya reminded that it is only on February 11, following the counting of votes that the final results would come.

“So indulge yourself with the exit polls but don’t lose sleep over it,” he wrote on Twitter.

Prior to the voting too, Malviya had tweeted a similar sentiment. Using the hashtag ‘BJP45PlusInDelhi’ he took to Twitter on February 6, to write, “Pollsters have often got opinion polls completely wrong… Delhi will be an addition to the list. Given the massive response to BJP’s outreach, it is amply clear that a landslide mandate awaits BJP on 11 February. Next target – Get the Vote Out on 8 February!”

In a similar vein, BJP MP Manoj Tiwari predicted that all the exit polls will “fail”.

The BJP will get 48 seats and form the government he predicted in a tweet.

As per the ABP-CVoter exit polls, the AAP is expected to get 49-63 seats, BJP is expected to get 5-19 seats and the COngress 0-4 seats in the 70 seat assembly.

The Times Now-IPSOS exit polls stated that AAP may get 44 seats while BJP may get 26 seats in the 70 seat assembly.

The Republic TV-Jan ki Baat exit polls predict that AAP may get 48-61 seats, BJP may get 9-21 seats and Congress 0-1 seats in 70 seat Assembly.

The AAP had scored an overwhelming victory in the 2015 polls, winning 67 seats and reducing the BJP to three. The contest is largely triangular between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party, BJP and Congress. Both BJP and Congress have given a few seats to their allies.

Earlier in January 2020, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora had asked media organisations to refrain from posting the exit polls during polling hours that is 8 am to 6 pm.

Polling in most assembly constituencies was between 50 and 60% according to the poll panel data.

Prominent among those who cast their votes were President Ram Nath Kovind, former President Pranab Mukherjee, former Vice President Hamid Ansari, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP leader LK Advani, and Union Ministers Harsh Vardhan and S Jaishankar. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also cast their votes.

Over 1.4 crore people are eligible to cast their votes including 81,05,236 male voters and 66,80,277 female voters. There are 869 third gender voters. The voting was held at 13,571 polling stations of which 3,141 were critical and 144 vulnerable polling stations.

(With inputs from agencies)