Exit polls are becoming a big scam, their secrets are being exposed election after election.

With the completion of the voting process of Telangana Assembly elections, all the survey agencies had broadcast their exit polls regarding the assembly elections held in five states. Voting was held in Mizoram on 7 November, Chhattisgarh on 7 and 17 November, Madhya Pradesh on 17 November, Rajasthan on 25 November and Telangana on 30 November. Most of the exit polls had predicted a close contest for power in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, but there were some exit polls in which some had predicted a one-sided victory of the Congress and some of the BJP. In Rajasthan, according to the exit poll of Aaj Tak-Axis My India, Congress was predicted to win 86-106 seats while BJP was predicted to win 80-100 seats, whereas according to the exit poll of Jan Ki Baat, Congress was predicted to win only 62-85 seats and BJP 100. It was estimated that 122 seats would be available. According to India TV-CNX’s exit poll, Congress was predicted to get 94-104 seats while BJP was predicted to get only 80-90 seats, while according to Dainik Bhaskar’s exit poll, BJP was predicted to get 95-115 seats and Congress 105-105. The possibility of getting 120 seats was expressed.

In the exit poll of Jan Ki Baat, BJP was expected to get 100-123 seats and Congress 102-125 seats. The exit poll of TV-9 Pollstrat had said that BJP may get 106 seats and Congress may get 111-121 seats. In Chhattisgarh, almost all the exit polls had said that Congress would get absolute majority. News 24-Today’s Chanakya in Rajasthan had predicted 77-101 seats for BJP, 89-113 seats for Congress and 2-16 seats for others. Similarly, BJP, Congress and others were given 80-100, 86-106 and 9-18 respectively by India Today-Axis My India, 100-110, 90-100 and 5-15 by TV9-Pollstar, 95-115 by Dainik Bhaskar. , had expressed the possibility of getting 105-120 and 0-15 seats. Whereas ABP-C voters had predicted that BJP, Congress and others would get 94-114, 71-91 seats respectively. If we look at the election results, in Rajasthan BJP has got 115 seats, Congress 69 and others 15 seats, while in Madhya Pradesh BJP has got 164 seats, Congress 65 and others 1 seat, while in Chhattisgarh also BJP has got 15 seats, according to the estimates of all the exit polls. Pare has been successful in securing absolute majority by securing 54 seats. According to various exit polls, MNF was expected to get 14 to 18 seats, Congress 8 to 10, JPM 12 to 16 seats in Mizoram and a hung assembly was predicted. However, in the election results, JPM got 27 seats with absolute majority, while MNF got 10, BJP got 2 and Congress got only 1 seat, that is, all the exit polls in Mizoram also fell flat.

The thing to be seen is that there was a big difference in the figures of many exit polls and at the same time there is always a big game of plus-minus involved in them. This is the reason why the claims made in exit polls are no longer trusted blindly because they are only predictions of election results and so far it has happened many times when the predictions made in various exit polls have changed the election results. Be exactly the opposite. However, the history of conducting election surveys is very old and such surveys are conducted in many countries of the world. During the electoral process, exit polls cannot be published or broadcast in any form until the final vote is cast. This is why exit polls are shown only after the voting process is completed. Exit polls cannot be broadcast until at least half an hour after the polling ends. These can be broadcast only when the last round of voting in the elections is over. Breaking this rule can result in a jail term of two years or a fine or both. Even if an election is conducted in multiple phases, the exit poll can be broadcast only after the last phase of voting, but before that, data is collected on the day of voting for each phase.

Election surveys are conducted before the exit poll and in the survey, the victory or defeat of various political parties and candidates is assessed by talking to the voters who came out to vote in many polling constituencies.

Most media organizations conduct exit polls in collaboration with some professional agencies. These agencies try to find out from the voters immediately after voting, for whom they cast their vote. Win-loss predictions are made on the basis of multiplication and division of those figures. The comprehensive results obtained from the survey conducted on this basis are called ‘exit poll’. Since these types of surveys are limited to a fixed number of voters, exit poll estimates do not always prove to be correct. Exit polls are actually nothing but the inclination of the voters, through which it can be estimated which way the results may be inclined. The claims of exit polls are not considered to have much scientific basis because they are prepared on the basis of talking to a few thousand people. In fact, these are only estimated figures and it is not necessary that the voter has told the surveyors exactly what he felt. This is why questions have often been raised regarding the credibility of exit polls.

-Yogesh Kumar Goyal

(The author is a senior journalist)