The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) could secure up to seven Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu, a state where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party has historically struggled in both central and state elections. This projection comes from various exit polls released on Saturday evening after the seventh and final phase of voting concluded.

India TV-CNX predicted the alliance could win between five and seven seats. The India Today-Axis My India exit poll suggests a smaller range of two to four seats, while the Jan Ki Baat exit poll estimates five seats for the NDA.

Three other exit polls—ABP News-C Voter, India News-D Dynamic, and TV9 Bharatvarsh-Polstrat—also predict at least one seat for the NDA. News Nation gives the bloc two seats, and Republic Bharat-Matrize forecasts just one seat.

It is crucial to note that these predictions are for the NDA as a whole, not specifically for the BJP, which has won only one seat in the past two elections. In 2014, Pon Radhakrishnan secured the Kanniyakumari seat for the BJP. PM Modi was in Kanyakumari in last two days for a post election meditation visit.

This year, BJP, under the leadership of K Annamalai put up a strong fight against the Chief Minister MK Stalin-led INDIA alliance in the state, which has DMK, Congress, IUML, CPI, CPM among others as partners.

In the 2019 election, the BJP allied with the AIADMK but was decisively defeated by the DMK-Congress coalition, which won 38 of the state’s 39 seats. The exception was Theni, near Madurai, which was claimed by the AIADMK’s P Ravindhranath. The BJP contested only five seats in that election.

This time, following a fallout with the AIADMK over comments by BJP state chief K Annamalai about AIADMK icons J Jayalalithaa and MG Ramachandran, the BJP is running without its Dravidian ally and has fielded candidates in 23 seats.