Except Telangana silver lining, exit polls miss the mark again

The assembly election results in five states have sprung a surprise for most pollsters. While the BJP got a comfortable majority in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, the Congress managed to win only Telangana and the Zoram People’s Movement stormed to power in Mizoram.

Newslaundry looked at the exit polls conducted by five media houses — India Today-Axis My India, ABP-CVoter, India TV-CNX, News24-Chanakya and Times Now-ETG — and found there were several misses.

In Chhattisgarh, all the pollsters above had predicted that the governing Congress would either emerge as the largest party or form the government. Contrary to the results, these exit polls were also divided on the mandate in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. In Telangana, they could at least get the winner right while in Mizoram only one could correctly predict the vote.

Let’s take a look.

Madhya Pradesh

The 230-member assembly in Madhya Pradesh now has 163 MLAs from the BJP and 66 from the Congress.

While Axis My India, Chanakya and CNX had predicted a comfortable majority for the BJP, only Chanakya was close to the results with its prediction of 139-163 seats for the BJP and 62-86 for the Congress.

CVoter and ETG, on the other hand, had expected the Congress to either cross the majority mark or become the largest party. CVoter gave the Congress 113-137 seats and ETG 109-125.

Rajasthan

The opposition BJP has bagged 115 seats and the Congress 69 in the 200-member assembly.

But three pollsters had predicted that the Congress would win more seats than the BJP. For the Congress, Axis My India predicted 86-106 seats, Chanakya 89-113 and CNX 94-104.  

Only Times Now-ETG could predict a score closest to the final results. It expected the BJP to win 108-128 seats and the Congress 56-72 seats. CVoter also expected the BJP to form the government with a prediction of 94-114 seats.   

Chhattisgarh

Unlike Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, where pollsters were divided on the winning party, the Chhattisgarh results proved each of them wrong. Four had predicted a majority for the Congress while the fifth saw it as the largest party.

But the BJP won 54 seats and the Congress 35 in the 90-member assembly.

Of the five exit polls, Chanakya gave the highest number of seats to the Congress at 49-65, followed by ETG’s 48-56, CNX’s 46-56 and CVoter’s 41-53. Axis My India expected a close fight, giving 40-50 seats to the Congress and 36-46 to the BJP.

Telangana

This was the only state where five exit polls got the winner right, at least. The Congress unseated the governing Bharat Rashtra Samithi by bagging 64 seats in the 119-member assembly.

ETG almost hit the bull’s eye by predicting 60-70 seats for the Congress and 37-45 for the BRS. Axis My India expected the Congress to win 63-73 seats, Chanakya 62-80 and CNX 63-79. CVoter gave the least number of seats to the Congress at 49-65. 

Mizoram

In the Northeast, Mizoram’s results were a far cry from exit polls too. Only Axis My India’s prediction was close to the final tally. It gave 28-35 seats to the Zoram People’s Movement. But its prediction for the governing Mizo National Front (3-7 seats) was below par. 

Of the 40 seats, ZPM has won 27 seats and MNF 10.

Other pollsters either saw a close contest or MNF getting more seats. CVoter believed that MNF would corner 15-21 seats and the ZPF 12-18 seats –in stark contrast to the final tally.  

It’s not the first time that exit polls have gotten it wrong. Read this report to understand how Axis My India underestimated the BJP in Delhi and Gujarat last year.

Small teams can do great things. All it takes is a subscription. Subscribe now and power Newslaundry’s work.