"Defeat Predicted, Will Surely Win": Congress' Nana Patole On Maharashtra Exit Polls

Maharashtra's Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi will form the state's next government and its Chief Minister will take oath on November 25, Congress's state unit chief Nana Patole told NDTV today. Asked about the exit polls, which have predicted either an NDA victory or a hung house, he told NDTV in an exclusive interview, "Last time they predicted a Congress victory in Haryana and we lost. This time they are predicting our defeat. We will surely win". 

The BJP's Milind Deora was equally convinced about a victory of the ruling Mahayuti alliance. "I am not into numbers... but we will definitely win". The reason of his confidence, he told NDTV, was that the alliance - working its way from the Lok Sabha election setback, "left no stones unturned... and checked all boxes".

Mr Patole, though, brushed off the possibility. Asked whether the Lok Sabha poll results were an aberration, he said, "When Prime Minister Narendra Modi could not prevail during the Lok Sabha elections, when will the likes of (Chief Minister) Eknath Shinde and Devendra Fadnavis do?"

Mr Patole also did not go into overall numbers, but predicted that the Congress would win 35 seats in Vidarbha alone and the alliance will make a clean sweep of the zone, winning at least 48 to 50 of the 62 seats.

The majority mark in the 288-member assembly stands at 145.

The Congress has contested 103 seats, the Shiv Sena of Uddhav Thackeray 89 seats and Sharad Pawar's faction of the Nationalist Congress Party 87 seats. 

Six seats were given to other MVA allies, while there was no clarity on three assembly segments.

An aggregate of nine exit polls earlier this evening said the Mahayuti -- ruling alliance of Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena, Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party and the BJP -- could win 150 seats and the Maha Vikas Aghadi, the coalition of Uddhav Thackeray's faction of Shiv Sena, NCP Sharadchandra Pawar and the Congress, may get 125. 

The exit polls that predicted an NDA victory include People's Pulse, Matrize, Chanakya Strategies, and Times Now JVC. The naysayers are Dainik Bhaskar, Lokshahi Marathi Rudra and Electoral Edge.

The counting of votes will take place on Saturday.