The much-awaited exit poll predictions 2024 will start coming in after 6.30pm today after the embargo period stipulated by the Election Commission. Apart from the Lok Sabha elections, assembly elections were held in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim. Exit polls are predictions based on what voters said while exiting the booth after exercising their franchise. Agencies like Axis My India, Today’s Chanakya, IPSOS, CVoter, CSDS conduct exit polls.
Exit poll predictions are never to be blindly relied on as there is always room for mistakes. Instances where exit polls went awry in the recent past are not scarce either. However, in 2019 and 2014, the exit poll predictions did not miss the mood of the nation.
In 2019, the exit polls on average predicted NDA’s tally at 306 and UPA’s at 120. The prediction was underwhelming when the actual results came as the NDA won 352 seats with the BJP at 303. The then-UPA got 93 seats with the Congress at 52.
2014 marked the landslide victory of the BJP-led NDA which many exit polls failed to gauge though they anticipated that the NDA was coming to power. They only missed the huge margin the NDA was going to make. An average of eight exit polls predicted 283 seats for the NDA and 105 seats for the UPA. The NDA for 336 seats with the BJP at 282; the UPA got 60 with Congress 44.
The 2024 election is not between the NDA and the UPA, it’s between the NDA and the new grouping of the opposition INDIA. Ahead of the election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi set an ambitious target of NDA ‘400 paar’ where BJP on its own will get over 370 seats.
The Congress already announced that it would not take part in exit poll debates on television channels to fuel ‘speculation and slugfest for TRP’.