Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan (file pic)
First leads poured in moments after counting of votes began in Madhya Pradesh on Sunday.
The ruling BJP hopes the Shivraj Singh Chouhan factor will trump traditional wisdom that when more people come out to vote, they are voting for a change.
Mr Chouhan has asked the state to give him a third straight term as Chief Minister and fought the Assembly elections held on November 25 on the appeal that he has done much for the development of the state.
Voting day saw a record 72.52 per cent turnout and rival Congress sees in that statistic a ray of hope that it could return to the state after 10 years; political analysts have for long read in higher numbers voting, an anti-incumbency trend.
The Congress projected young royal and union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia to counter the popular Mr Chouhan and the party's state chief Kantilal Bhuria asserted on Saturday, "We will win 135 to 140 seats." Pre-poll surveys and exit polls have, however, predicted that Mr Chouhan will get his third term.
The "exit poll of polls," an average of exit polls conducted by different agencies, shows the BJP grabbing 141 of the state's 230 assembly seats. It shows the Congress getting 77. The half-way mark for the state assembly is 115.
The Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and three other states for which votes are being counted today are being seen as a semi-final to the general elections due by May. They are also being considered a test of the popularity of Narendra Modi, the BJP's prime ministerial candidate.
Mr Modi was announced the BJP's presumptive PM in September this year.