Opposition Cites Faux Pas In Exit Polls, Challenge Veracity

Most of the exit polls have widely predicted that the ruling NDA will secure a comfortable third term in the Lok Sabha elections 2024, projecting a two-thirds majority in the 543-member house where 272 seats are required for a simple majority.

A total of six exit polls estimate the NDA will bag between 355 to 380 seats, building on their 353-seat victory in the 2019 Union election, of which the BJP accounted for 303 seats.

On the other hand, opposition's INDIA alliance is expected to win between 125 to 165 seats.

Despite these predictions, exit polls have a history of inaccuracies, with analysts privately acknowledging the difficulties of accurately forecasting results in a diverse and populous country like India. Concerns about the quality and professionalism of some pollsters have emerged this election season, with unmissable errors surfacing on June 1.

In Andhra Pradesh, new and never-heard before pollsters such as Partha Chankya, RACE, Atma Sakshi SAS, and Agniveer provided conflicting data. One group predicted a sweep for the TDP-led Janata Sena and BJP alliance in both Assembly and Lok Sabha polls, while another group predicted an easy win for the incumbent YSRCP led by CM Jagan Mohan Reddy. The contradiction in data on the same day raised questions about the reliability of these polls.

Some more errors:

1. News24 predicted 33 seats in NDA's kitty in Rajasthan - a state with only 25 Lok Sabha seats.

2. On Zee News, Axis My India predicted 6-8 seats for the NDA in Himachal Pradesh - a state with only four Lok Sabha seats.

3. The same pollster also predicted 16-19 seats for the NDA in Haryana, which has 10 Lok Sabha seats.

4. For Odisha, a state with 21 Lok Sabha seats, India Today TV predicted 18-20 seats to BJP, two to BJD, and one to Congress.

5. Axis My India forecasted that the LJP would win 4-6 seats in Bihar, despite the party contesting only five seats.

Opposition dismisses exit polls as unscientific

Congress' social media chief, Supriya Shrinate, called it "Narendra Modi's exit poll", and claimed the INDIA bloc's win would "not be one seat less than 259."

Congress leader Ajay Maken tweeted, "Candidate's Counting Agents' at the ARO table are NOT being allowed for the first time...If true, this is bigger than the alleged EVM rigging!"

Former journalist and TMC Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghosh tweeted against the poll predictions. She said, "exit polls in a quasi-dictatorship like India are designed to please the regime, are hypothetical and speculative."

She pointed to the significant discrepancy in the 2021 West Bengal assembly election exit polls, where India Today predicted 130-156 seats for the TMC and 134-160 for the BJP, while the actual result was a decisive 215-77 in favor of Mamata Banerjee-led party.

While exit polls accurately predicted the formation of the NDA government in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, they failed to precisely gauge the extent of the Congress' defeat. This track record, combined with recent errors and allegations of bias, casts doubt on the reliability of the current exit polls' projections.