With voting for the fifth and final phase of Jharkhand Assembly elections coming to an end on Friday, various exit polls predicted a hung assembly in the state.
The IANS-CVoter-ABP survey has predicted 35 seats to the JMM-Congress-RJD combine and 32 to the Bharatiya Janata Party. According to the Times Now survey, the Congress alliance will get 44 seats while the BJP will win 28. Aaj Tak has given 38 to 50 seats to the three-party alliance and 22 to 32 seats to the BJP.
All pollsters have predicted that the JMM will be the main gainer.
The final phase of polling in 16 assembly constituencies of Jharkhand passed off peacefully on Friday. Out of 81 assembly seats in the states, elections concluded in 65 constituencies in the previous four phases—between November 30 and December 16.
Counting has been scheduled on December 23.
Of the 5,389 polling stations in the state, 396 in Naxal-affected areas have been marked "critical" and 208 as "sensitive".
In the present assembly, the BJP has 43 members, JMM 19, Congress eight, AJSU Party three, JVM(P) two, CPI(ML) Liberation one, MCC one and others two. Two MLAs Geeta Koda (Independent) and AJSU Party's Chandra Prakash Choudhary resigned after being elected to Lok Sabha.