The Congress, which posted a hugely improved performance in the Lok Sabha election, is likely to end the year on a sweet note, exit polls indicate. The party is likely to form the next government in Haryana, ending the 10-year run of the BJP;  and its alliance with National Conference may stay ahead in the race for Jammu and Kashmir, which could delivered a fractured mandate.  

An aggregate of seven  exit polls indicate that the Congress will win 55 of Haryana’s 90 seats – comfortably ahead of the halfway mark of 45.  

In Jammu and Kashmir, which also has 90 seats after delimitation, the Congress-National Conference alliance is likely to win 43 seats — three less than the majority mark. 

Exit polls, though, can often get it wrong. 

The BJP could end up with 27 seats each in Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir.  One exit poll, Jist-TIF Research, gave the BJP an outside margin of 37 seats – the maximum – in Haryana. 

Abhay Chautala’s INLD (Indian National Lok Dal) could win two seats and the BJP’s erstwhile ally JJP (Jannayak Janata Party) one seat in Haryana. 

Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party, exit polls indicate, may not be able to open its account in Haryana, despite its rule in neighbouring Delhi and Punjab.

The situation in Jammu and Kashmir, where assembly election was held after a decade, throws up interesting possibilities given the prediction of a hung house. 

An aggregate of three exit polls indicate that the Congress and the National Conference will end up with 43 seats. The BJP’s projected score of 26 could put it far enough from the majority mark to stich up any alliance with smaller parties or Independents.

The BJP’s erstwhile ally, Mehbooba Mufti’s Peoples Democratic Party, likely to win seven seats, is hoping to emerge as the kingmaker. The party has ruled out any possibility of a tie-up with the BJP, talking only in terms of a “secular alliance”. 

The BJP-PDP alliance, formed after yet another split verdict in 2014, broke down in  2018 after which the state was placed under President’s rule. In 2019, it was split into two Union Territories – a situation the BJP has promised to reverse in its third term at the Centre. 

The ball could thus be in the court of National Conference and the Congress to send feelers to the PDP. But the hurdle here is the historic rivalry between then NC and the PDP, which had always been competing for the votes in Kashmir Valley.

Ahead of the election, Mehbooba Mufti had extended a loaded offer to the NC-Congress alliance, saying she was ready to stay out of the election and leave all assembly seats for them if they were ready to accept the PDP’s agenda, including on Kashmir.

Forget about alliance and seat-sharing, if the Congress and the National Conference (NC) are ready to accept our agenda — that resolution of the Kashmir issue is necessary and on opening of routes — we will tell them to contest on all the seats and we will follow you,” she had said while releasing her party’s manifesto.

The two parties, part of the Gupkar alliance that’s aiming for restoration of statehood, had been unable to see eye to eye for the Lok Sabha polls as well, despite repeated requests by the Congress.
The counting of votes will be held on October 8.
 

The potential successor to Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has been out of contact since Friday, a Lebanese security source told Reuters on Saturday, after an Israeli airstrike that is reported to have targeted him.

In its campaign against the Iran-backed Lebanese group, Israel carried out a large strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs late on Thursday that Axios cited three Israeli officials as saying targeted Hashem Safieddine in an underground bunker.

The Lebanese security source and two other Lebanese security sources said that ongoing Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburb – known as Dahiyeh – since Friday have kept rescue workers from scouring the site of the attack.

Hezbollah has made no comment so far on Safieddine since the attack.

Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said on Friday the military was still assessing the Thursday night airstrikes, which he said targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.

The loss of Nasrallah’s rumoured successor would be yet another blow to Hezbollah and its patron Iran. Israeli strikes across the region in the past year, sharply accelerated in the past few weeks, have decimated Hezbollah’s leadership.

Israel expanded its conflict in Lebanon on Saturday with its first strike in the northern city of Tripoli, a Lebanese security official said, after more bombs hit Beirut suburbs and Israeli troops launched raids in the south.

Israel has begun an intense bombing campaign in Lebanon and sent troops across the border in recent weeks after nearly a year of exchanging fire with Hezbollah. Fighting had previously been mostly limited to the Israel-Lebanon border area, taking place in parallel to Israel’s year-old war in Gaza against Palestinian group Hamas.

Israel says it aims to allow the safe return of tens of thousands of citizens to their homes in northern Israel, bombarded by Hezbollah since Oct.8 last year.

The Israeli attacks have eliminated much of Hezbollah’s senior military leadership, including Secretary General Nasrallah in an air attack on Sept. 27.

The Israeli assault has also killed hundreds of ordinary Lebanese, including rescue workers, Lebanese officials say, and forced 1.2 million people – almost a quarter of the population – to flee their homes.

The Lebanese security official told Reuters that Saturday’s strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in Tripoli killed a member of Hamas, his wife and two children. Media affiliated with the Palestinian group also said the strike killed a leader of its armed wing.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike on Tripoli, a Sunni Muslim-majority port city that its warplanes also targeted during a 2006 war with Hezbollah.

Israel has meanwhile staged nightly bombardment of Dahiyeh, once a bustling and densely populated area of Beirut and a stronghold for Hezbollah.

On Saturday, smoke billowed over Dahiyeh, large parts of which have been reduced to rubble sending residents fleeing to other parts of Beirut or of Lebanon.

In northern Israel, air raid sirens sent people running for their shelters amid rocket fire from Lebanon.

ISRAEL WEIGHS OPTIONS FOR IRAN

The violence comes as the anniversary approaches of Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and in which about 250 were taken as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and displaced nearly all of the enclave’s population of 2.3 million.

Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas, and which has lost key commanders of its elite Revolutionary Guards Corps to Israeli air strikes in Syria this year, launched a salvo of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday. The strikes did little damage.

Israel has been weighing options in its response to Iran’s attack.

Oil prices have risen on the possibility of an attack on Iran’s oil facilities as Israel pursues its goals of pushing back Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and eliminating their Hamas allies in Gaza.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday urged Israel to consider alternatives to striking Iranian oil fields, adding that he thinks Israel has not yet concluded how to respond to Iran.

Israeli news website Ynet reported that the top U.S. general for the Middle East, Army General Michael Kurilla, is headed for Israel in the coming day. Israeli and U.S. officials were not immediately reachable for comment.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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