Exit polls go way off the mark

The final outcome of the Lok Sabha elections has raised questions about the accuracy of exit polls, with all poll predictions going way off the mark.

But television news channels as well as exit poll agencies put up a brave front and said exit polls were able to gauge the broad trend of the Congress gaining its lost ground all over the country, although they went wrong in predicting the total number of seats.

"It is true that in predicting the actual election results we were not accurate, but we were correct in predicting the broad poll direction," said Binod Agrawal, director Taleem Research Foundation. Taleem undertook the exit poll exercise for Zee News.

The wayward predictions were justified by poll pundits. They pointed out that the smaller size of the sample, discrepancy in recording by the sample voters as well as statistical errors at the time of extrapolation of the sample size, could be the reason for predictions going wrong.

While conducting the exit polls, it was made known by the agencies that this time around the exercise was conducted more scientifically than during earlier elections. It was also revealed that there would be an error margin of 35 per cent in the disclosures made by sample voters.

This implies that about 30 per cent of the voters gave wrong inputs while responding to exit polls.

"We undertook the exit poll with a small sample compared to total number of voters. This could be one reason for wayward predictions when it came to the actual number of seats. But, we believe that exit polls hold a great relevance," said a senior professional associated with the Aaj Tak exit poll exercise.

Besides, it was revealed that last minute alliances drawn up by political parties had also made most of the predictions go haywire.

"We had drawn up the sample size in the initial phase of the election process. The composition of the political alliances changed considerably since then. Besides, there were changes in the political scene even after the first round of elections.

This is also a reason that led to our predictions going wrong when it came to the number of seats," said a senior executive with Sahara TV.