Have mainstream media Exit Polls moved away from ground reality? Recent past reaffirms that

The Exit Polls are at it again. With the Assembly elections drawing to a close on Monday, March 7, 2022, they all have predicted a clean sweep for Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh and in a couple of other states. However, two exit pollsters stuck their neck out in contradiction to this trend.

TV channel Bharat Samachar has predicted a win for Samajwadi Party and its allies by giving it a comfortable majority of 250+ seats in Uttar Pradesh. Deshbandhu paper has called it in favour of SP, giving it a margin of 228-244 seats. Deshbandhu is also one of the few which have called the election in Punjab in favour of the Indian National Congress. DB has stated that INC will be the single largest party in Punjab with 62-68 seats.

India Today-Axis My India exit polls predicted a massive majority for BJP in the 403-member assembly with almost 288-326 seats. Samajwadi Party is predicted to win 71-101 seats while the BSP is unlikely to touch double digits. The BSP may win 3-9 seats, according to the exit polls. Other pollsters gave the ruling BJP a comfortable winning majority in the 220-250 range.

Several journalists who travelled extensively through Uttar Pradesh during the campaigning phase have also dismissed the exit polls. The Wire founding editor MK Venu underlined that the biggest concern for youngsters in UP was joblessness. He travelled across rural areas of Eastern UP, mainly through Ballia, Varanasi, Jaunpur, Sonbhadra and Mirzapur.

“Several youngsters said they had completed graduation and Inter (Class 12), but they have not been able to find any source of income. In many villages, several men were practicing running in the maidan as they were hoping to improve their speed, which is a requirement to be selected to the armed forces. But, the armed forces recruitment hadn’t happened in over two years in most of these areas,” explained Venu.

Farmers in these parts highlighted that the amount of food grains that the government gave as a part of Covid-19 package was less than what the stray cattle eat of their crops. It was much too less and disregarded the dignity of families. Most people discounted the free rations that the government provided as they wanted to improve their lives and not live at the mercy of the government.

Freelance journalist Saba Naqvi also pointed out that many of those who took the free ration did not intend to vote for the ruling party. She had travelled extensively through Uttar Pradesh during the election campaign. Many in the state, she said, wanted more than just survival. They didn’t want the “charity” thrown at them in the form of grains.

Naqvi pointed out that the abandoned and stray cattle is a major talking point this election and BJP is directly responsible for the worsening situation. There is anger against the ruling party because of this too. It is an outcome of the misguided “cow protection” policies of the government.

“Many wanted jobs to be able to buy their own food. Everyone was talking about the acute economic distress, and BJP has not addressed it according to people in these regions. The discourse, wherever we went, was on lack of livelihood options, falling number of jobs and inflation. Many complained of not being able to fill the tanks of their motorcycles due to rising prices,” added Venu. He pointed out that they did not come across a single person praising BJP.

He called attention to the point that all the exit polls were stating that BJP will increase its vote share and that is what makes these polls unreliable. “From what several of us saw on the ground, it is unbelievable that BJP will not lose a certain percentage of their vote share. There is too much distress in UP for it to not translate into a reduction of vote share. The voters also did not fall for the Hindu-Muslim card constantly played by BJP and Yogi Adityanath,” underscored Venu.

These exit polls have also called the election in favour of Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab, though one exit poll has stated that Congress would be the single largest party in Punjab. Many of these pollsters have also predicted wins for BJP in Goa and Manipur and a tight race in Uttarakhand between Congress and BJP.

Exit polls have almost always got their predictions wrong. During 2015 Delhi assembly elections, all exit pollsters predicted Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to get around 31-39 seats, BJP 27 to 35. No one was able to predict the victory margin of AAP when it won 60 of the 70 seats.

In 2019, after the Haryana Assembly elections, pollsters had projected that Manohar Lal Khattar would return to power with even a bigger mandate. Many predicted more than 70 seats for BJP in the 90-member state Assembly and single digit seats for Congress. But the saffron party couldn’t even touch the majority mark and they had to cobble up an alliance. Congress surpassed all exit poll predictions and won 31 seats.

These exit polls were divided on who would win Chhattisgarh in 2018 and Jharkhand in 2019. Many exit polls suggested that it would be a tight finish for BJP and Congress in Chhattisgarh. However, it was a landslide victory for Congress which won 67 of the total 90 seats and wresting the state from BJP and marking an end to the Raman Singh regime.

In Jharkhand, two of the four exit polls gave United Progressive Alliance the edge in 2019. One exit poll predicted a hung assembly while another one has given the BJP a slight edge. The UPA with Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal won a majority with 47 seats in the 81-member Assembly.

What turned the tide against these pollsters was the massive victory they were predicting for BJP in West Bengal in 2021. Most predicted Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) to win somewhere between 104-121 seats, whereas BJP 162-185. When the results came, they all had an egg on their face with TMC winning 213 seats in the 294-member Assembly. BJP won only 77 seats.

It would do all of good to remember the overconfident Atal Bihari Vajpayee government’s India Shining campaign with which they had hoped to create electoral history in 2004. All exit polls had shown that BJP would return to power. The NDTV-AC Nielsen exit poll predicted 230-250 seats for the NDA and 190-205 for the Congress, while others were expected to get 100-120 seats. The average of exit polls gave the NDA 252 seats.

When the results came, BJP won only 138 seats and NDA 181. Congress got 145 and the United Progressive Alliance 208 and UPA went on to rule for 10 years. Even in 2009, exit polls put the NDA at 187 and the UPA at 196, but the actual results were 159 and 262 respectively.