(Online Desk)

The Bharatiya Janata Party will most likely win between 118 and 120 seats in the upcoming Gujarat assembly elections, although it is possible that it could win just around 100 with the Indian National Congress winning up to 80 seats in the 182-member assembly, according to bookmakers in Gujarat and Mumbai.

Although betting is illegal in India, a huge underground betting business sprouts around key events — important cricket matches, for instance, or elections. Bookmakers are usually a good source of information on possible outcomes, although they are highly unreliable and have sometimes got things spectacularly wrong.

There is a Rs 1,000 crore betting business associated with the Gujarat assembly elections according to the bookmakers, all of whom spoke to a national daily published from New Delhi on condition of anonymity.

According to the bookmakers, the BJP will return to power, but there’s a possibility that it could end up with fewer seats than it did in 2012, when it won 119.

The most likely scenario, though, according to the bookmakers, is that it will win between 118 and 120 seats — a number not very different from what a few BJP leaders have been quoting in private.

The payouts offered by the bookmakers reflect their opinion that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal as a son-of-the-soil, and BJP president Amit Shah’s strategising will win the day for the party which has been in power in the state for 22 years.

The bookmakers are offering Rs 1.25 for every Rs 1 placed on a BJP win, and Rs 3 for every Rs 1 placed on a Congress win.

In early November, they were offering Rs 7 for every Rs 1 placed on a Congress win; the change reflects how far the Congress has come in pubic perception.