Sriram Karri | How exit polls went off mark: Could they not read the signs?

You can’t fool all of the people all of the time, someone said long ago, but exit pollsters and psephologists, TV anchors and editors ignored this wisdom on June 1, when the broadcast, telecast and printed exit polls not only gave the Narendra Modi-led NDA a super majority, but also an upper spectrum possibility of breaching the historically elusive 400 mark.

They were all proven wrong, with the NDA struggling to touch even 300. The BJP, which was supposed to have not only won a third consecutive term with an absolute majority, but also increased its tally to over 350 seats, could not even get a basic majority of 272.

The exit polls also did not predict much by the way of a fight or even a good showing from either the Congress Party, or the INDIA alliance led by it — most projecting around 150 seats for it at the maximum. They obviously got that wrong as well.

The best supporter of the Indian media’s exit polls would also find that indefensible, with one of their poster boys, founder of Axis MyIndia polls Pradeep Gupta, who boasts of a track record of nearly 70 previous elections in the last decade, including two Lok Sabha elections, breaking down in tears.

But the exit polls got other things wrong, too. The biggest showpiece of the general election, Uttar Pradesh, with its 80 parliamentary seats, largest population and voter count, was projected as being headed for a period under the “double-engine sarkar”. That narrative drew its strength from an a priori belief in the so-called unbeatable Modi-Yogi Adityanath combination.

Surprisingly, unlike most exit polls in the past, in India or worldwide, those published and broadcast on June 1 were broadly aligned in their results, seemingly keen to convince the country and its voters that the game was over and it was a done deal that the Narendra Modi government would win with its biggest vote-share and number of seats. Ironically, while all the exit polls were in agreement with each other and in near-perfect accord, they were found to be in discord with the actual mandate of the voters of India.

At the end of the actual counting day, while both the two main parties and arch-rivals could find some consolation, a semblance of a win, even with the BJP short of an absolute majority which they won in the last two Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019, the biggest loser was the exit poll industry.

How could so many exit polls, including ones by the most eminent of experts, individuals as well as institutions, some of them with decades of experience, not anticipate that the BJP under Prime Minister Modi was going to suffer a huge reversal in the largest state? How could they miss it that it would be West Bengal chief minister and Trinamul Congress boss Mamata Banerjee who would hold her fort, even strengthen its bastions, rather than the saffron party making inroads into the eastern state?

How could the performance of the ruling party and the main Opposition in several big states — Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Rajasthan — be so wrongly read as to obfuscate the very direction of the mandate, not just the scale and detail?

How could the exit pollsters infer, without an iota of doubt, that the Congress would not fare reasonably well in the southern states that it had won within the last year — Karnataka and Telangana? How could pollsters not relook at the spectacular gains they were projecting for the BJP in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, without really doubting their data at all? But they did, and they did not.

It is not that the exit polls did not get anything right at all. Almost all of them predicted that there would be a new government in Odisha after a quarter of a century and that incumbent chief minister Naveen Patnaik would taste defeat after five terms. They also got it right that the BJP would rise at the cost of the Biju Janata Dal in the eastern coastal state.

They also had a handle on the events that were about to unfold on Tuesday in the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh. Lots of them, if not all, correctly foretold that the YSRCP led by its chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy would be defeated, both in the state Assembly elections and the Lok Sabha polls, even if not one could portend the scale of the rout.

The exit polls in India failed but thankfully, several other institutions did not fare badly. The Election Commission, its staff and those on election duty, security and counting duty, as well as the oft-abused Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), passed the test of credibility and proved themselves as fair custodians of democracy.

But above all, the people of India, with their unimpeachable spirit of democracy, decency and sense of equity, have once again cleared every test, and given a smart, just verdict. The exit polls may have failed, as has perhaps the media, but the real polls have won. Here’s a big cheer for the future of Indian democracy.