By IANS
Ahmedabad : Gujarat’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was inching towards a victory Sunday in assembly elections with counting trends showing it might win slightly over 100 seats, officials and analysts said.
The Congress, which was determined to oust Chief Minister Narendra Modi, had made significant gains from the Dec 11 and 16 polling but not enough to unseat the BJP, counting trends showed.
Political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan said the BJP could end up with 100-105 seats. The BJP won 127 seats and the Congress 51 in 2002.
BJP leaders gloated over the prospect of victory while Congress functionaries, who were confident of a win even when the vote count began at 8 a.m., started to admit that they might lose.
According to officials, the BJP was in the lead in 105 of the total 182 seats despite losing in many areas that it had swept in 2002. The Congress was ahead in 71 seats.
Smaller parties and independent were poised to win in four constituencies.
Gujarat Congress leader Bharat Singh Solanki sounded dejected when he remarked: “God is great. Yes, it is a great margin (between the BJP and Congress).”
Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said the Congress could have done better had it put up a strong candidate to match the stature of Modi, who emerged as the tallest figure in the electoral battle.
In Ahmedabad, BJP’s Haren Pathak told reporters that the party’s performance, in line with the predictions made by exit polls, was mainly due to the leadership provided by Modi.
“He is our chief minister, he is our leader, he is our master hero,” Pathak thundered, referring to the man who the Congress and other critics attacked on charges of whipping up communal passions.
The BJP losses were dominantly coming from Central Gujarat but it appeared to have beaten back the challenge of dissidents within in the sprawling region of Saurashtra.
The counting of the millions of votes polled in the make-or-break Gujarat election started at 37 centres across the state amid tight security involving 7,700 officials and thousands of security personnel.
Both the BJP and the Congress had said they hoped to win the electoral battle.
Exit polls conducted after the final round of polling Dec 16 had predicted a thin majority for Modi.
According to CNN-IBN, the BJP is tipped to win 92-100 seats to the Congress’ 77-85 while NDTV gave the ruling party 90-110 seats compared to 70-95 for the Congress.