It’s a hat trick for Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the BJP set to cruise to its biggest win ever, according to the latest exit polls. The BJP will sweep back to power with at least 350 seats, making shock big gains in Bengal and also looking set to take seats in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, according to the polls.

While the official results won’t be tallied until Tuesday, the BJP appears likely to also hold on to its seats in its strongest states like Uttar Pradesh and sweep almost all the seats in Madhya Pradesh.

The initial exit polls indicate that the BJP may even win the 400 seats that it had hoped to win and which most analysts had thought was mission impossible. The projected results mark a massive defeat for the INDIA alliance and humiliation for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi who had been hoping to capitalise on what was perceived of as anti-incumbent sentiment after Modi’s decade at the helm. The Axis-India Today poll however, predicted that Gandhi would win his own Rae Bareli seat.

But Modi’s huge personal popularity appears to have won the day with the biggest surprise served up by the exit polls in Bengal where the ABP-Ananda poll showed the BJP winning a huge 26-31 seats and in a big blow to Mamata Banerjee, the TMC dropping to between 11 and 14. The Left-Congress alliance is predicted to come in with one-to-three seats.

The exit polls show the Modi-led alliance set to wrest a decisive majority of between 353 and 401 seats in the 543-seat Lok Sabha. In the 2019 vote, the NDA captured a total of 352 Lok Sabha seats of which the BJP on its own collected 303. It used to be that exit polls were considered unreliable but in recent years they have grown more trustworthy in indication election results.

Polls conducted by six Indian TV stations and agencies all showed the Modi-led National Democratic Alliance winning a comfortable majority of between 353 and 401 seats in India’s 543-seat Lok Sabha.

If these numbers hold good they would be even greater than the BJP and analysts had predicted. The BJP is expected to get 46 per cent of the vote share compared to the TMC’s 40 per cent.

In Maharashtra, the NDA could get about 10 seats down from 41 in the last election. The Congress is leading in three to four seats out of the 17 it stood in. Both the Uddhav Thackeray Shiv Sena and the Eknath Shinde Shiv Sena have done well. The Axis-India Today poll appeared to indicate that Supriya Sule, Sharad Pawar’s daughter, is leading in the Baramati seat.

The BJP also could score victories in three south Indian states – Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, according to the exit poll forecasts. Besides that it is likely to do well in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh

In Bengal, it looks like the BJP's campaign of polarisation has worked while the widespread corruption charges against the Trinamul Congress government have come back to bite it – badly.

The most unexpected reverse for the Congress looks to be in Karnataka, according to the Axis-India Today poll. Here the predictions are that the NDA alliance will capture 23-25 seats despite the fact that the Congress is ruling at the state level. The Congress, according to the poll, will get a minuscule three-to-five seats.

For the BJP, the biggest reverse could be in Rajasthan where the Congress is likely to win five-to-seven seats after being shut out in 2019. Analysts say bad candidate selection and caste grouping could play against the BJP in the state.

In Kerala, too, the BJP could open its account, if the exit polls are correct. In Thiruvananthapuram, the BJP’s Rajeev Chandrasekhar has a very real chance of coming in ahead of Shashi Tharoor, the constituency’s three-time winner. Thiruvananthapuram is the seat most expected to go to the BJP. Both the ABP-CVoter and the Axis-India Today poll indicate the BJP is likely to return its first MP to parliament in the state.

The Axis-India Today poll indicated that in Kerala, the NDA could win up to 27 per cent of the vote. The BJP appears to have increased its vote share amongst all communities including even the Christians. One poll suggested that 11 per cent of the Christians have voted for the BJP.

Similarly, in Tamil Nadu, the BJP has a chance of opening its account, though it’s not sure which seats they might win.

In Telangana too, the BJP could pull off a huge surprise and win 11-12 seats compared to four to six for the Congress. This despite the fact that the Congress recently won the state elections. BJP seems likely to get 43 per cent of the vote compared to 39 per cent for the Congress. A BJP spokesperson said the BRS vote had shifted to it.

Analysts say it’s clear Modi’s decision to campaign heavily in the south delivered big-time for him and it’s his charisma that’s bringing home the votes there. In all, Modi, who was on the third and final day of his 45-hour meditation retreat Saturday in Kanyakumari, held some 200 rallies across the country.

In Karnataka, it looks like the BJP could score big because it took former chief minister B.S. Yeddurappa back into its fold. The party could even see both the strong Lingayats and the Vokkaligas reaping the votes for them. Even Prajwal Revanna, who was arrested soon after he returned from abroad to Bangalore, is expected to win in the Hassan constituency which is the family stronghold. The BJP also dumped B. L. Santosh who had handled the state election.

Similarly, in Odisha, it looks like the BJP will in a shock win deliver a knock out blow to Naveen Patnaik’s BJD.

The lack of an alliance in Punjab could hit the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) hard with the Congress and the BJP both gaining seats.

In Goa, south Goa is likely to go to the Congress and north Goa will stay with the BJP, according to the exit polls.

In Gujarat, unsurprisingly, the BJP is expected to sweep as in the previous election with 63 per cent of the vote.