Exit polls are surveys of voters conducted after they have cast their votes at their respective polling stations. They try to give the readers/television audience a fair idea of which way the results of an election will go. After the last day of polling in the states of Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh on March 8, pollsters have been at it and trying to predict the winners and losers. Media across the board have picked up these predictions and projected the BJP to be winning the single largest number of seats in Uttar Pradesh, Manipur and Goa but with a hung assembly, while Punjab is likely to go to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Uttarakhand to the BJP. Exit polls are by design highly dependent on answers given by voters to the queries posed by poll surveyors. But how many voters will actually answer truthfully is difficult to ascertain. And whether the survey was scientifically carried out is also the key question.
Latest reports claim that in Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party is now looking to tie up with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of Mayawati , ostensibly to keep the BJP out of the hot seat in that state. The Congress as an alliance partner does not even seem to have a say in such future deals. There are many who scoff at exit polls, considering that the predictions for the Bihar Assembly polls two years ago went completely awry. Nevertheless, the media is unstoppable and having taken a firm stance on which party is winning where they will not even bother to explain to the public how and why they went wrong when the exit polls don’t match up with the real results.
For the BJP winning UP is crucial for it to muster strength in the Upper House where most legislations proposed by it are throttled for want of numbers. Prime Minister Modi is accused of campaigning as if he is the chief minister of UP. Indeed he has kicked up a lot of dust and storm across the state. Now it remains to be seen if that gigantic effort has paid off.