BJP eyes historic Bengal breakthrough as exit polls back NDA surge

A historic BJP win in West Bengal; a second term for Stalin in Tamil Nadu; Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma retaining power for another term; a close victory for Congress in Kerala; and retention of power in Puducherry. These are the broad predictions from most exit polls for the five state elections, released on April 29.
If these appear largely along expected lines, there are some outliers too — including one exit poll predicting that actor Vijay’s party could come to power in Tamil Nadu. Exit polls are not an exact science, and often get outcomes wrong. But there is no denying the scale of what is at stake: nearly 18% of India’s electorate has voted across these five states over the past few weeks, with results to be declared on May 4.