Exit polls ahead of Gujarat Assembly polls have indicated that the majority of Muslims in the State have decided to back the Congress party this time. Assembly polls, to be held in two phases on 09th and 14th December, commence the day-after-tomorrow.

‘India TV’, a private television channel, has just released the results of the exit polls it conducted across the State, which is slowly but steadily becoming a politically significant State on par with Uttar Pradesh.  he exit polls have released caste-wise and community-wise affiliation of parties.

In the first phase, 89 constituencies would go to polls on Saturday while the second phase of polling on next Thursday would see the remaining 93 constituencies voting. The BJP, which has been in the saddle for the past 22 years, is fighting hard to keep the Opposition Congress at bay even as the Congress is making a no-holds-barred attempt to unseat the BJP from the seat of power in Gandhinagar.

Critics view the results of the Gujarat Assembly polls as a curtain raiser to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls as it is the home State of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Exit polls have predicted that 47% of ST community would vote for the BJP, 39% for the Congress while 14% would prefer voting in favour of other parties; 43% STs prefer BJP, 45% prefer Congress while 12% might opt to vote for other parties.

51% of the OBCs prefer to vote for BJP, 30% to Congress while 19% may prefer other parties. Among the ‘forward castes’, Congress leads with 51% vote share, followed by the BJP with 31% and other parties collectively with 18%. Muslims appear to prefer the Congress to the BJP by a huge margin as 62% may vote for Congress while the BJP may get only 19% votes.