Odisha ‘Saving Grace’ Of Exit Pollsters As Most Predictions Fall Flat Nationally

New Delhi: It was a forgettable day in office for pollsters in India.

The final results are still to be announced in a majority of the 543 seats, but going by trends and leads around 5 pm with not many rounds left to be counted, it’s crystal clear the exit polls got it horribly wrong in their predictions for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Unlike several significant predictions of the exit polls – such as NDA bagging around 350 seats with BJP over 300, the saffron party and its alliance parties doing very well in states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Haryana — the ground realities are quite different.

A saving grace for the pollsters, who conducted surveys after the final round of voting on June 1, is the state of Odisha.

Unlike the rest of the country, results in Odisha are more or less matching the projections of June 1.

Almost all exit polls had shown BJP to be winning anything between 16 and 19 seats in the 21-member state Assembly, reducing Biju Janata Dal (BJD) to an embarrassingly low single digit.

As of now, BJP is leading in 19 seats, BJD and Congress in 1 each.

For the Odisha Assembly polls, which were held simultaneously with LS elections, two exit polls were available which forecast a better picture for BJD.

India Today-Axis My India poll predicted a neck-and-neck fight in the 147-seat Assembly, forecasting seats in the range of 62-80 and vote share of around 42% for both BJD and BJP.

Jan Ki Baat, on the other hand predicted 81 (+-12) seats for BJD and 58 (+-14) for BJP.

On the ground, BJD is ahead in 79 constituencies and BJD in 50.

The majority mark is 74, so BJP is in pole position to form the next government by ending the long reign of Naveen Patnaik.

Odisha apart, the pollsters correctly predicted a big win for Chandrababu Naidu and NDA in Andhra Pradesh. Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party bagged an overwhelming majority of 136 out of 175 Assembly seats.