Feb 23, 2017 | Bureau

Lucknow: Bookies have revised their poll forecast for the BJP from 97 to 161 seats in Uttar Pradesh after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a belligerent attack on rival parities over their “minority appeasement politics”.
As five Indian states goes to polls to select their new governments, stakes are changing fast in Delhi’s underground gambling markets, India Today reported.

The bookies are reportedly betting huge on the Bharatya Janata Party (BJP), a day after Modi took a dig at rival parties.

The results will be declared on March 11.

The betting industry saw a huge commotion following Modi’s remark over “qabristan” (graveyard) and “shamshan” (cremation ground), the report said.

It said BJP moved from a probability of 97 seats as on February 6 to 161 seats on February 21, while Samajwadi Party (SP) slumped from 220 seats to 150.

The BSP tally hasn’t changed much, varying from 66 seats to 72, according to the market.

“Since PM Modi’s statement on February 20 that there should not be any discrimination between Hindus and Muslims, the satta (betting) market has witnessed commotion, with the BJP overtaking the SP-Congress alliance for the first time,” India Today quoted a bookie as saying.

“In the first week of February, the SP-Congress alliance was way ahead of its rivals and was in a position to form government with 220 seats.

“But in the last 15 days, it kept losing seats to the BJP with an average of five seats daily,” said the bookie.

He said the emotive issues work better in elections.

However, others said Akhilesh Yadav’s comment of “Gujarat donkeys”, directed at Modi’s home state, has had a negative impact on voters. In Punjab, the gambling market sees an AAP win with 58 to 60 seats.