Hours before D-Day, BJP sure of win

PATNA: Late on Saturday afternoon, BJP functionaries and their sympathizers at the party’s state headquarters were of the opinion that it would be a long night before the counting of votes begins at 8am on Sunday for the declaration of poll results.
“Things would be clear by Sunday noon, but never had the waiting for a Sunday been so long as is this day,” said Subhesh Kumar Singh alias Babuaji, a contractor and BJP sympathizer who hails from Ekma in Saran district, but lives here.He was not the only person exhibiting this mood of waiting.
The only parallel of the level of suspense and anxiety was with regard to a similar waiting for the poll result of the 1977 parliamentary election, when everyone felt that the Congress and the then PM Indira Gandhi would lose, but no one seemed sure about it.
Despite the exit poll results, no one is sure which of the two major political combines – grand alliance of the JD(U), RJD and Congress, or the NDA comprising the BJP, LJP, RLSP and HAM-S – would win, and also what would be the tally of the Left Front combine.
At the state BJP headquarters, the functionaries were sure that the BJP-led NDA would win. The BJP has contested 157 seats, LJP 42, RLSP 23, and HAM-S 21.
As to the party’s brass, former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi (SuMo) spent the day at his Polo Road official residence, attending to mobile phone calls from various districts. It is learnt that SuMo told a senior functionary that the BJP would form the government and the NDA’s tally would not be less than 140 seats.
BJP media cell functionary Rajiv Kumar and some others felt, “Is baar nahin to kabhi nahin (It is now or never).”
Media observers at the state BJP headquarters felt that “their (BJP people’s) confidence level is very high, but the source of confusion is that similar confidence prevails in the camp of the rival side – the grand alliance.”