The Congress get together workplace a day earlier than the election ends in Jaipur on Saturday. Express Photo by Praveen Khanna)

Must Read From Our Polls Coverage

📌 With a fight on its hands in Rajasthan and MP, Cong hopes Chhattisgarh will be plain sailing: Chhattisgarh and Telangana. Of the 4 states the place votes might be counted on Sunday, the Congress, in response to the exit polls, has a bonus in solely these two states whilst Rajasthan is predicted to be an in depth contest and Madhya Pradesh is predicted to go the BJP’s method. In Chhattisgarh, the pollsters have predicted Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s return to a second straight time period in energy however with fewer seats.

📌 Notes from the Madhya Pradesh ground: This spherical of meeting elections is almost carried out, with voting over for Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram, and Rajasthan and Telangana left to go. There might be winners and losers, after all, however should you solely paid consideration to the white warmth ratcheted up by contestants, you possibly can miss out on what the voters are saying. Given that voters converse solely as soon as in 5 years, it will be important, presently, to transcend the events’ slogans and certitudes, hold an open thoughts and pay attention nicely.

📌 Owaisi in his labyrinth — Canvassing in Old Hyderabad streets to live TV performance: An articulate face on nationwide TV, Asasuddin Owaisi, 54, appears to be enjoying truant on the top of a vital marketing campaign in his dwelling base, Hyderabad. Not simply parachuting journalists, even native veterans can’t hint him. He declares a roadshow or a door-to-door canvassing in a single phase of town and turns up at one other. To meet up with these sudden diversions is much from simple on this previous capital metropolis that each contesting get together guarantees to become the following Bengaluru.

📌 As PM Modi turns up the heat on KCR, the long and short of BJP’s Telangana strategy: Three days earlier than Telangana votes within the Assembly elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi focused the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and reiterated that it was the get together’s accountability “to bring Telangana out of the clutches of the BRS”. Modi additionally reiterated that the BJP had “turned down” the BRS’s supply to affix arms. The prime minister’s constant assault on Chief Minister Ok Chandrashekar Rao, popularly often called KCR, and his get together illustrates the BJP’s earnest effort to shrug off the Congress’s allegation that the BJP and the BRS have joined arms within the election.

📌 W for welfare, R for religion, O for OBCs — Parties have found a common poll language: As the ballot fever for the 5 Assembly elections winds down – although each Rajasthan and Telengana have grow to be unexpectedly thrilling, with the Congress placing up a combat – it’s time to seize some broad tendencies. What is putting are the areas the place a consensus is now growing throughout events, and one among them is the necessity to present social welfarism – name it freebies, doles, handouts, what you’ll – as a part of a security web. The Congress and BJP are vying with one another to vow – and mount – new welfare schemes.