UP Assembly Elections Exit Polls result: BJP closest to threshold number of seats

Lucknow : It will be a hung assembly in Uttar Pradesh with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerging closest to the threshold of 202 seats in the 403-seat assembly, exit polls forecast on Thursday.

Of the five exit polls by ABP-CSDS, TimesNow-VMR, India TV-CVoter, India Today-Axis and MRC, only Axis suggested the BJP getting a clear majority with 265 seats. The rest predicted that the BJP would stay below the 200-mark.

The CSDS survey gave the BJP 175 seats, MRC 185 seats, C-Voter 161 seats and VMR 200 seats. The average figure, or the poll of polls, worked out to be 197 seats for the BJP. This is still slightly short of the simple majority mark.

The Samajwadi Party- Congress combine is lagging far behind, according to the exit polls. The highest number of seats was given to the alliance by ABP-CSDS, which showed it getting 163 seats.

While both MRC and VMR showed the combine getting 120 seats, the C-Voter survey put the figure at 141, and Axis at 100 seats. The average number of seats the combine is getting emerged to be 129, way below the simple majority mark.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which was being seen as the proverbial dark horse by a few political pundits, has been projected by all the surveys as the distant third -- Mayawati's party getting an average of 68 seats. 

The MRC gave it 90 seats, C-Voter 87, ABP-SCDS 66, VMR 64 and Axis polls gave it just 35 seats.

The polls showed others getting around nine seats.