The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: With voting in the last phase of the general elections concluding today at 6 pm, the focus in the media, particularly in the news channels, will shift to the exit polls.
Each of the top 24-hour news channels — Hindi and English — will flash numbers on to their screens within hours after the voting ends, accompanied by discussions with an array of poll pundits to help firm up their exit poll predictions.
The big question that all the exit polls will dwell on is predictable — will the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his deputy, Amit Shah, return to power for the third straight term? The anchors and their guests will make their estimates before June 4, the day votes polled during the seven-phase parliamentary elections are slated for counting.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
The onslaught of exit polls on viewers at today’s prime time, however, comes with a caveat — not always have these predictions turned out to be accurate, a point underlined by The Hindu BusinessLine. “An analysis of the exit polls post the last two Lok Sabha elections shows they were not very accurate,” a report said.
Highlighting that the reliability of exit polls depends on a clasp of factors, “including the sample size (of voters), the amount of data collected, the design and structure of the questionnaire, and the analysis methodology”, the report underscored, “In the 2019 LS elections, most exit polls were inaccurate, except for the India Today poll, which was fairly close to the winning margin.”
The India Today-Axis My India poll had given the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) 339-365 seats and 77-108 seats to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and other parties 69-95 seats.
In contrast, the NDTV’s Poll of Polls predicted 302 seats for the NDA; the News 18-IPSOS 336 seats to the NDA; and ABP-Nielson 267 seats.
Post counting, there NDA scored 352 seats while UPA was restricted at 91 and other parties took home 100 seats.
The BusinessLine analysis highlighted that exit polls were way off the mark in 2014, too. In those elections, which brought Modi to the Prime Minister’s Office, the NDA won an impressive 335 seats while the UPA won a paltry 59 seats.
“However, none of the exit polls foresaw the emphatic win for the NDA alliance or the rout of the UPA.”
“In both the 2014 and 2019 LS elections, media agencies (which collaborate with various TV channels to produce exit polls) accurately predicted that the NDA would emerge victorious, but none could nail the exact number of seats.” The numbers given to political parties by exit polls have been way off the mark in state elections too, in a number of cases.
MoneyControl, in a report published on May 30, underlined five previous instances when the final numbers announced after counting of voters in an election differed from the exit polls predictions. “A notable case is the 2004 Lok Sabha elections when, despite exit polls favouring the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government with a majority, the final outcome surprised everyone.”
“Similarly, in the Delhi Assembly Elections of 2015, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) secured a commanding victory with 67 seats out of 70. Exit polls conducted on the voting day had anticipated a clear majority for AAP, but none foresaw such a sweeping verdict, with only one hinting at a tally exceeding 50 seats,” the report highlighted. Two other examples mentioned in the report were the outcome of the Bihar assembly polls in 2015 and the state polls of Uttar Pradesh in 2017.
And yet, the viewer, the media and political parties’ interest in the exit polls has not waned fully. As per the Election Commission’s directive, these polls are allowed to be released only after the voting on the last day ends, or else it could influence voter decision. The guidelines for regulating the exit polls are provided under Article 324 of the Constitution.