Reporters diary: Enter Lok Sabha poll results, exit pollsters

CHENNAI: The exit polls conducted by close to a dozen pollsters and media houses turned out to be a farce, as none of the predictions came even close when the votes were counted on Tuesday.

In their forecast aired within minutes of the last phase of polling getting over on June 1, almost all of them had said the BJP-led NDA would sweep the election nationally, with seat predictions ranging from 330 to 400. The INDIA bloc, on the other hand, would not cross even the 150mark, we were told.

Political strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor said Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP would return to power with a comfortable majority. In the case of Tamil Nadu, several media houses based in Delhi and Mumbai said the BJP would win 3-5 seats due to what they termed ‘Annamalai’ effect. However, these predictions were wrong – and how! Such was the situation that popular psephologist Pradeep Gupta, one of those who predicted a big victory for the BJP, cried during a live session with senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai. Popular YouTuber Dhruv Rathee even asked if the exit polls were aiming to manipulate the stock market. But there were honourable exceptions. One such was Karnataka-based Eedina, which not only challenged the exit poll findings with a forecast of its own, which turned out to be closer to reality, but even asked the pollsters and media houses to share the survey details stating that credentials and quality of samples are crucial. Political analyst Yogendra Yadav, once a noted psephologist himself, had the last laugh, as he was almost bang on giving 220 to 240 seats for INDIA bloc and repeatedly asserted that BJP would not cross the simple majority mark of 272 seats.