MP Elections: I Don't Rely On Exit Polls, Says Uma Bharti

Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister and senior BJP leader Uma Bharti on Thursday said she does not "rely" on exit polls. Exit polls for five states will be telecast later in the evening once voting ends in Telangana.

Assembly polls were held in these five states on November 7 (Mizoram and first phase Chhattisgarh), 17 (Madhya Pradesh), 25 (Rajasthan) and 30 (Telangana). "I wish my party forms the government in Madhya Pradesh. I respect MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan a lot," Bharti told reporters.

Asked about exit polls, Bharti said she did not "rely" on them. "They predict that a party will win between 112 and 130 seats (out of 230 seats in MP). Now, if that party gets 112 seats and loses elections, the exit pollsters claim they have proved right. But if that party gets 120 seats and wins, the exit polls claim their prediction was right," she claimed. "So exit polls are two sides of the same coin. I do not rely on them," she added.

In November 2020, exit poll predictions about Rashtriya Janata Dal under Tejashwi Yadav forming government in Bihar proved wrong, she said. "We distributed sweets at our office (in Bhopal) in 1998 but lost the (Assembly) polls," Bharti said.

In 1998, the Congress retained power under Digvijaya Singh. When queried about how many seats Bharatiya Janata Party will win, she said the party contests every seat to win. The BJP has been in power in MP since 2003, except for a 15-month period between December 2018 and March 2020 when Kamal Nath headed a Congress government.

It fell in March 2020 and the BJP came back to power under Chouhan. In the 2018 Assembly polls, the Congress won 114 seats, while the BJP emerged victorious on 109 seats in the 230-member Assembly.