Amit Shah to host dinner for NDA leaders after exit polls predicted return of Modi

Heartened by the exit poll predictions in favour of his party, BJP president Amit Shah will host a dinner for NDA leaders on Tuesday, ANI news agency reported citing sources. A meeting of Union Council of Ministers will also take place, the agency said.

All the polls predicted BJP-led NDA a clear winner in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. One of the most reliable of them by News Nation predicted 286 seats for the saffron party-led coalition.

The News Nation exit poll predicted anything between 282 and 290 seats for the BJP-led NDA and a maximum of 126 seats for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Others will perform better than the UPA with the maximum of 138 seats.

The biggest gains for the BJP are likely to be West Bengal and the Odisha where the saffron party is predicted to register historic win. In TMC citadel West Bengal, the BJP was projected to increase its tally to nine seats, seven more than 2014.

Reacting to the exit poll results, BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav said that Bengal will surprise all the pollsters as he hoped to do "extremely well" in the state. He said that Bengal will repeat what Uttar Pradesh did in 2014, when the party secured 71 of the total 80 sseats.

"Bengal will surprise all the pollsters, we are hoping to do extremely well there. Everyone has seen the tremendous outpouring of support for PM Modi & BJP in Bengal. What Uttar Pradesh was in 2014, Bengal will be in 2019," Ram Madhav said.

In Odisha, the BJP may end Naveen Patnaik’s invincibility by making a big dent in his party BJD’s vote share. The saffron party was predicted to win 8-10 seats against BJD’s 11-13. The vote share of the BJP was projected at 34 per cent, only three per cent less than the BJD’s 37 per cent. In 2014, the BJP had won only one seat in the state.