Lucknow/ Kolkata/ New Delhi/ AMARAVATI: Reacting to exit polls given out by various channels and others, Congress leader Pramod Tiwari said on Sunday that these polls seem to have been designed to promote the Modi government, while the BJP said the these polls only reflected what opinion polls had already said.
“We do not know form where the pollsters have got these figures. We have travelled extensively during elections and the ground realities are different. We would prefer to wait for the results before commenting because exit polls have gone horribly wrong in the past,” Tiwari said.
However, Uttar Pradesh BJP spokesman Rakesh Tripathi said the exit polls were reflective of the opinion polls.
“The Congress should understand that their Rafale issue has flopped. The BJP will do better than what the exit polls are showing,” said Tripathi.
Samajwadi Party spokesperson Juhie Singh said the exit polls were giving out “contradictory figures.”
“We know the SP-BSP alliance has done exceedingly well. The results will prove this,” she said.
Gameplan to manipulate EVMs: Mamata
Dismissing the exit poll predictions of the Lok Sabha elections as “gossip”, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said it was a “gameplan to manipulate and replace thousands of EVMs” and urged opposition leaders to stand strong and united.
“I don’t trust Exit Poll gossip. The game plan is to manipulate or replace thousands of EVMs through this gossip,” Banerjee said in a social media post.
“I appeal to all Opposition parties to be united, strong and bold. We will fight this battle together,” she said.
Almost all exist polls either gave a majority to the NDA or predicted it would stop close to the majority mark. The various exit polls also forecast a massive increase in the BJP’s number of seats – from two in 2014 to between 16 and 18 in West Bengal.
Every single poll can’t be wrong: Abdullah
Minutes after the exit polls projected the return of a BJP-led NDA government, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah it was not possible for all the surveys to go wrong. “Every single exit poll can’t be wrong! Time to switch off the TV, log out of social media & wait to see if the world is still spinning on its axis on the 23rd,” Abdullah, the former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, posted on Twitter.
Abdullah’s tweet came several minutes after the exit polls predicted the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to cross the halfway mark of 272 seats, required for the formation of the government at the centre. As per the projections of the IANS-CVOTER exit poll, the NDA is expected to lead the seat tally with 287 seats. This accounts for 42.3 per cent of the vote share. In 2014, the NDA had swept the Lok Sabha polls with 336 seats, out of which BJP won 282 seats on its own.
The CVOTER exit polls further projects the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to bag just 128 seats.
Although this number is 69 seats more than the numbers UPA got in 2014, this falls too short of the winning number of seats.
The UPA, according to the projections, is likely to secure 29.6 per cent of the total vote share. In 2014, the Congress had fared dismally winning just 44 seats.
Has failed to catch the pulse of the people: Naidu
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said that time and again exit polls have failed to catch the pulse of the people.
“Exit polls have proved to be incorrect and far from ground reality in many instances,” the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief tweeted after a majority of exit polls favoured the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to form the government by winning about 300 seats.
“While undoubtedly TDP govt will be formed in AP, we are confident that non-BJP parties will form a non-BJP govt at the center,” Naidu said. Naidu also reiterated the demand that the Election Commission count voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips in at least 50 per cent of the polling stations. “VVPATs should be counted in five polling stations in each Assembly constituency at the beginning of the counting process. In case of discrepancy, all VVPATs of Assembly constituencies should be counted,” he said.
