Atul Krishan
Bookies who run the Satta Bazar had put their money on the Congress in the Assembly elections in Karnataka, saying the grand old party will win around 120-140 seats in the 224-member state Assembly.
And with Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai already conceding defeat on Saturday after the Congress breezed past the halfway mark, leading in 129 seats as per the latest Election Commission results data, the Satta Bazar seems to have got the predictions spot on.
While the Satta Bazar predictions for the Karnataka elections gave the Congress 130 to 140 seats, the BJP was projected to win 70 to 80 seats, followed by the JD(S) at 22. And so far the projections are proving to be fairly accurate with the BJP leading in 66 seats, and the JD(S) in 22 seats.
“We had said that the Congress is looking strong in Karnataka, and we were correct. We had also predicted that the Bajrang Bali issue was only helping the BJP gain Hindu votes, not the full majority,” said a bookie from the Hapur Satta Bazar.
Prior to this, the Satta Bazar had accurately predicted the victory of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab, the Congress win in Himachal Pradesh, and BJP’s sweep in Uttar Pradesh.
(Atul Krishan can be approached at atul.k@ians.in)
