 "Lok Sabha elections, exit polls")
As the counting for the 2024 Lok Sabha election got underway, the early trends after nearly two hours of counting seemed to be defying all the exit polls.
While all the exit polls had predicted a clean sweep for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), with some even allotting over 400 seats to the saffron coalition, the trends suggest a closer fight.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA had already crossed the majority mark of 272. At 12 pm, the NDA was leading on 298 seats, while the INDIA bloc was trailing behind with a lead over 226 seats.
In major contests, Rahul Gandhi was leading from the Rae Bareli seat, and Kishori Lal was ahead of Smriti Irani in Amethi. Meanwhile, after an intial scare, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was leading from his Varanasi seat by a margin of 13,000 seats as of 11 am.
Irani was trailing behind Congress worker Kishori Lal Sharma by around 19,000 votes in Amethi. She had defeated Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in 2019.
After initially trailing behind, BJP’s Rajnath Singh was leading with 8,826 votes from Lucknow constituency in Uttar Pradesh.
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In the battle for Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party was leading on 34 seats.
Exit polls predictions for 2024 elections
News 24-Today's Chanakya exit poll had predicted the NDA to win 400 seats, while the INDIA bloc would settle at 100 seats. Meanwhile, India Today-Axis My India poll results said that the NDA would bag somewhere between 361-401 seats in the Lok Sabha.
Times Now-ETG exit poll results had predicted the NDA to get 358 seats, while the INDIA bloc would get 152 seats.
A big win for the ruling BJP-led NDA had been predicted by nine other exit polls - ABP News-C Voter (353-383), Republic Bharat-P Marq (359), India News-D-Dynamics (371), Republic
Bharat-Matrize (353-368), Dainik Bhaskar (281-350), News Nation (342-378), TV 9 Bharatvarsh-Polstrat (342), India TV-CNX (362-392), and Jan Ki Baat (362-392).
Even political pundit Prashant Kishor had come out with divergent scorecards for the ruling BJP-led coalition. Kishor had estimated that the BJP will mirror its 2019 performance of securing about 303 seats.
Kishor believed that the BJP will likely match or surpass its 2019 tally of 303 seats. He added that while the BJP may not meet the target of 370 seats and the NDA's 400-plus seats, it should focus on achieving a majority of 272 seats. He noted that the BJP has the potential for gains in the South and East, making it highly unlikely for the party to lose 100 seats to the opposition. He added that Congress was likely to secure less than 100 seats.
Kishor's rationale behind these figures was that there was no widespread anger against Prime Minister Modi and the BJP, which can play a crucial role in the ousting of a government.
Exit polls go wrong quite a lot
Exit polls have been known to be wrong throughout history. For instance, in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, a majority of the exit polls had predicted that the BJP and its allies (NDA) would get a comfortable victory with between 240 to 275 seats. However, the results were surprisingly different. The National Democratic Alliance won only 187 seats, while the Congress and its allies won 216 seats.
Similarly, in the Bihar Assembly elections in 2020, most of the exit polls had predicted a clear win for the Tejashwi Yadav-led Mahagatbandhan, but it was ultimately the BJP-JD(U) alliance that emerged victorious.
Even during the West Bengal Assembly elections in 2021, prominent private exit poll surveys such as India Today’s Axis My India and Republic-CNX poll had positioned the BJP as leading in the assembly elections. However, the saffron party won only 77 seats in the polls, defeated by Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress’s tally of 213 seats out of the total 294 seats.
