New Delhi: The campaign is over and now it’s time for the exit polls to take over. TV news channels will be flooded Sunday evening with exit polls conducted by a variety of polling agencies over the seven phases of the Lok Sabha elections.
Viewers will tune in for the surveys, to get a hint about who will be declared the winner on 23 May, amid big claims vis-a-vis their accuracy — India Today’s Rahul Kanwal recently claimed 95 per cent accuracy for its polls on Lok Sabha and assembly elections.
We said BJP will lead UP in 2017, it happened
We said Goa, Meghalaya would be hung – it happened@IndiaToday @AxisMyIndia exit poll has been correct in 95% cases. This time we are coming with biggest sample in India- 7 lakh+ voters! Bigg Boss of exit polls https://t.co/sVgGVzHFaz pic.twitter.com/jiHrhJ9ZLF
— Rahul Kanwal (@rahulkanwal) May 16, 2019
But the history of exit polls has been somewhat uneven.
ThePrint analysed select exit polls from the last three general elections — 2004, 2009 and 2014 — in order to find out their accuracy rate. Here are the results:
2004: When all the exit polls got it wrong
All of the five 2004 exit polls analysed by ThePrint for this report — Aaj Tak ORG-Marg, NDTV AC Nielsen, Sahara DRS, Star News C-Voter and Zee News-Taleem — predicted that the BJP-led NDA would return to office, but counting day gave the Congress and its allies the chance to form the first of two successive UPA governments under Manmohan Singh.
The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) secured 219 seats in a House of 543 (it formed the government with outside support of parties) while the NDA was at 187 seats. The Congress won 145 seats, while the BJP was the second-largest party with 138.
All the exit polls got the results wrong by 20-40 seats. The only exit poll to predict over 200 seats for the UPA was NDTV AC Nielsen, which gave the alliance anything between 190 and 205 seats, while estimating a tally of 230-250 seats for the BJP-led NDA.
However, even this survey was totally off the mark in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala. In UP, it had forecast that the BJP would win 28 seats, but the party only got 11 – that’s 50 per cent less than predicted.
In West Bengal, the survey predicted the NDA would win nine, but it only won one. In Kerala, it had predicted 13 seats for the Congress, but the party scored zero in the state.
The exit poll farthest off the mark was Sahara DRS – it predicted 263-278 seats for the NDA and 171-181 for the UPA.
2009: Predicted winning coalition but had poor accuracy rate
In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, exit polls rightly predicted the return of the Congress-led UPA. However, the results were not spot on.
ThePrint analysed five exit polls from 2009 for this report: CNN-IBN-CSDS, India TV, Star Nielsen, Times Now and Headlines Today.
The UPA won 262 seats, while the NDA got 159 seats, a difference of at least 60-80 seats from exit poll predictions. The Congress and the BJP alone got 206 and 116 seats, respectively.
The exit poll closest to the result was CNN-IBN-CSDS, which predicted 185-205 seats for the UPA and between 165 and 185 seats for the NDA.
The poll with the most inaccurate prediction came from the Times Now stable, with a tally of 198 seats for the UPA and 183 for the NDA.
2014: Greater accuracy
Powered by a nationwide “Modi wave”, the BJP-led NDA swept the 2014 elections by securing 336 seats while the Congress-led UPA folded up with a mere 60. The BJP alone won 282, setting the stage for India’s first majority government in 30 years, while the Congress fell to 44 seats, its lowest-ever tally.
In analysing the accuracy of the 2014 exit polls, ThePrint again took five surveys into account — Times Now-ORG, CNN IBN-CSDS Lokniti, India TV-CVoter, News24 Chanakya and ABP News Nielsen. Almost all predicted a majority for the NDA, but none except News 24 Chanakya could estimate the exact extent of the sweep: It predicted 340 seats for the NDA and 70 for the UPA.
News 24 editor-in-chief Anuradha Prasad had told the Mint newspaper at the time that when they “came up with such numbers, it sounded drastic to most people”.
“Some media organisations and politicos ridiculed us, saying it was bizarre. But I was very sure these numbers were correct and the channel believed we should stick with it,” she said.
Times Now-ORG was the farthest off the mark, predicting 249 seats for the BJP-led NDA and 148 for the UPA.
Also read: Why media ground reports, opinion & exit polls don’t agree with each other on elections
Please check 2009 graphic. The final result column is different from what the parties got. UPA won 262 seats, while the NDA got 159 seats,but graphic mentions result of 2004.