Exit polls today: How have pollsters fared in the recent past?

The exit polls had been postponed till March 9 following the death of Samajwadi Party candidate from Alapur seat in UP

Bengaluru, March 9: The much- awaited exit polls for Uttar Pradesh and four other states will be out on Thursday after 5.30 pm. The exit polls had been postponed until March 9 following the death of Samajwadi Party candidate from Alapur seat in UP. The polling for that constituency is underway.

Exit polls are always interesting and much awaited. Some exit polls have been spot on, but there are others that have gone wrong by a long shot. Let us look at some of the exit polls that have gone right in the recent past.

• In the February 2015 Delhi elections, India News-Axis came close. It gave the Aam Admi Party 53 seats. The AAP finished with 67 seats.

• In the Bihar elections, all pollsters got it wrong. The grand alliance of the Janata Dal-United, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress finished with 178 seats. Everyone had predicted the BJP and its allies would finish with over a 100 seats. The alliance wound up getting 58 seats.

• In the 2012 UP elections, Headlines Today came close when it predicted 195 to 210 seats for the Samajwadi Party. The SP ended up with 224 seats.

• The 2016 Tamil Nadu elections saw pollsters giving the DMK and its allies 110 to 140 seats. However, most were proven wrong when the AIADMK won with 136 seats.

• In the West Bengal elections, almost all got it right when a landslide TMC win was predicted. The TMC went on to win 211 seats way past the 148 seat mark.

• In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, everyone had predicted a majority for the NDA. The News24-Today's Chanakya prediction came closest. The NDA won 334 seats while the BJP alone won 282. The Congress won just 45 seats.

OneIndia News