Exit poll results: Opposition cites gaffes to cast doubts over accuracy

Doubts have been raised about the quality and professionalism of some of the pollsters this time too.

Most exit polls have predicted the NDA will coast comfortably to a third win in the Lok Sabha elections. The ruling NDA is projected to win a two-thirds majority in the 543-member lower house of Parliament, where 272 is needed for a simple majority. Six exit polls project NDA will win between 355 and 380 seats. The NDA won 353 seats in the 2019 general election, of which BJP accounted for 303. The opposition's INDIA alliance is projected to win between 125 and 165 seats.

A man watching television waits for the release of exit polls published after voting concluded. (AFP)

But exit polls have a patchy record—they have often got the outcome wrong, with analysts admitting privately that it is a challenge to get accurately forecast results in a large and diverse country such as India.

Doubts have been raised about the quality and professionalism of some of the pollsters this time too. Some blatant gaffes came to light on June 1:

1. Sudden proliferation of pollsters in Andhra with previously unheard names like Partha Chankya, RACE, Atma Sakshi SAS and Agniveer. A set of pollsters released data which predicted that the TDP-led Janata Sena and BJP alliance would sweep both Andhra assembly and Lok Sabha polls. A little later, another bunch – presumably from the other side – predicted that the incumbent YSRCP of YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is set to return with ease. How can the same set of poll data produce diametrically opposite results on the same day?
2. News24 gave 33 seats to the NDA when Rajasthan only had 25 Lok Sabha seats.
3. On Zee news, Axis My India gave 6-8 seats to the NDA in Himachal, when the state sends just four MPs to the Lok Sabha.
4. The same pollster gave 16-19 seats to the NDA in Haryana when the state sends 10 Lok Sabha members to the Parliament.
5. India Today TV gave 18-20 seats to the BJP, 2 to the BJD and 1 to the Congress in Odisha, which has 21 Lok Sabha seats.
6. The LJP is contesting 5 seats in Bihar but winning 4-6, according to Axis My India.

Predictably, a frustrated opposition has dismissed the exit polls, calling them unscientific. “This is a government exit poll, this is Narendra Modi’s exit poll,” Supriya Shrinate, the Congress’s social media head, told news agency ANI, asserting that the Congress and INDIA alliance will “not be one seat less than 259.”

Another Congress leader, Ajay Maken, tweeted that “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 Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP, Sagarika Ghosh, tweeted that “exit polls in a quasi-dictatorship like India are designed to please the regime, are hypothetical and speculative.” She quoted the India Today exit polls of Bengal assembly elections, 2021, to show how widely off the mark they were, predicting 130-156 for the Trinamool and 134 to 160 for the BJP! The final result was 215-77 in favour of her party.

It would be instructive to remember that exit polls predicted the NDA government formation easily both in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls but were unable to accurately forecast the extent of the Congress rout.