Stretched over 35 days, completed in nine phases, comprised of 814.5 million voters — these are a few facts that define the longest ever Lok Sabha elections in India. Voting has come to an end and its outcome will be declared on 16 May. Before that, almost every channel or newspaper has extensively covered the polls and done a number of surveys and exit polls to predict the outcome.
With a green signal by the Election Commission, every channel is broadcasting the result of its exit poll. Narendra Modi is being portrayed as the next prime minister by most of the channels. In every exit and opinion poll survey, the Bharatiya Janata Party is declared as a sure shot winner and Narendra Modi is projected to lead the nation under the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The Congress would witness a defeat and hardly cross the mark of 100 seats.
By overall combining the survey polls it is clear that the BJP-led NDA will cross the mark of 272 whereas the Congress-led UPA will remain between 110 and 148 seats. The BJP will perform exceptionally well in north India, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, but not so well in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where regional parties will steal the show. The Congress would be erased from Rajasthan.
As per surveys and exit polls, the Aam Aadmi Party won’t do well in Lok Sabha elections and will get 4% vote share at national level. There is a little hope for the AAP in Punjab and it may come out as a single largest party in the state.
Chanakya Exit Poll – The prime ministerial candidate of the BJP, Narendra Modi, will become the PM of India. The BJP will cross the majority number and win 279 seats. It will form the government at the Centre under NDA, with a total of 340 seats. The Congress will win just 57 seats and the total number of seats won by the UPA will be 70.
The Times Now Exit Poll – The BJP will win 218 seats in totality, whereas the Congress may win 105-120. Modi will become PM under the BJP-led NDA. The NDA will have 249 seats and the UPA will have 148 seats. Astonishingly, it predicted that the AAP won’t win any seat.
The ABP-Nielsen survey – The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will win 233 seats whereas the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) will win 119 seats. Individually the BJP will win 209 seats as compared with 116 seats in 2009, whereas the Congress alone would win just 91 seats as compared with 206 in 2009. In this survey, more than 29,000 people were interviewed between March 9 and March 16.
Poll survey by Cicero for India Today group – The BJP-led NDA will win 261-283 seats.
Research group C-voter – The BJP-led NDA will win 289 seats and the Congress-led UPA will win just 101 seats.
New X poll survey – The NDA would win 289 seats whereas the UPA will win 101 and others 153 seats.
But these opinion and exit polls cannot be taken with certainty. Many a times the results of exit polls go wrong. In 2004 the exit polls had predicted the victory of the NDA and stated that the BJP-led NDA would form government for third successive term but the result was entirely opposite to what was predicted. At the same time, opinion polls cannot be ignored altogether.
Do share what do you feel about exit and opinion polls and their predicted result for Lok Sabha election 2014. Who do you think will form the next government?
