I have been on phone/WA all morning. The consensus seems to be that the exit polls may be far from accurate.
Every person says that the numbers seem to be about double the number they predicted in their own state (which they know best), even as they profess no confidence in their predictions for another state.
Which means that if you are Maharashtrian, of the 48 seats (of which BJP had 23, and the undivided SS had 18, totalling 41 Lok Sabha MPs), it was expected (funnily, not just by the INDIA/MVA people, but also frankly by the NDA/MY folks on the ground, where I have been constantly active) that the BJP would win around 8-10 and their allies, another 5-6, taking the tally to at least 13 and at most 16, give or take a seat or two. So, the exit polls stating that the NDA will get 28-31 seem to be more or less twice their own calculation (except my contacts in RJ and MP, who said that their state numbers are closer to the ground reality). And while the Maharashtra person has no opinion on the Bihar or Telangana numbers for example, it is interesting that they were very confident that the poll results are inflated by a factor of 2 in their own state.
Here’s the take from my phone/WA conversations: If the exit polls are right, forget the INDIA bloc voters/supporters/partners, the most surprised at the numbers would be the NDA workers on the ground.
This is, of course, totally anecdotal and not a scientific survey. But it is what it is. Once again, I have no clue about where the truth lies. We’ll know soon enough. Hopefully.
Note: I uploaded this blog post later. However, the original Facebook post was written on 02 June 2024 at 1259h IST. Here’s the link, just in case someone doubts that I ‘predicted’ numbers post ipso facto.
