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By:

Yogesh Kumar Goyal

19 April 2026 at 12:32:19 pm

The Exit Poll Mirage

While exit polls sketch a dramatic map of India’s electoral mood, the line between projection and verdict remains perilously thin. With the ballots across five politically pivotal arenas of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry falling silent until the results are announced on May 4, poll surveyors have filled the vacuum with exit poll numbers that excite, alarm and often mislead. These projections have already begun shaping narratives well before D-Day on May 4. If India’s...

The Exit Poll Mirage

While exit polls sketch a dramatic map of India’s electoral mood, the line between projection and verdict remains perilously thin. With the ballots across five politically pivotal arenas of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry falling silent until the results are announced on May 4, poll surveyors have filled the vacuum with exit poll numbers that excite, alarm and often mislead. These projections have already begun shaping narratives well before D-Day on May 4. If India’s electoral history offers any lesson, it is that exit polls illuminate trends, not truths. Bengal’s Brinkmanship Nowhere is the drama more intense than in West Bengal, arguably the most keenly watched contest among all five arenas. The contest for its 294 seats has long transcended the state’s borders, becoming a proxy for national ambition. Most exit polls now point to a striking possibility of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) majority, in some cases a commanding one. Such an outcome would mark a political earthquake. For decades, Bengal has resisted the BJP’s advances, its politics shaped instead by regional forces - first the Left Front, then Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC). Yet the arithmetic of the polls suggests that the BJP’s campaign built on organisational muscle and the promise of ‘parivartan’ (change) may have finally breached that wall. The TMC, meanwhile, appears to be grappling with anti-incumbency and persistent allegations of corruption. Still, one outlier poll suggests it could yet retain power, a reminder that Bengal’s electorate has a habit of confounding linear predictions. Here, more than anywhere else, the gap between projection and reality may prove widest. Steady Script If Bengal is volatile, the Assam outcome looks fairly settled. Across agencies, there is near unanimity that the BJP-led alliance is poised not just to retain power, but to do so comfortably. With the majority mark at 64 in the 126-member assembly, most estimates place the ruling coalition well above that threshold, in some cases approaching triple digits. The opposition Congress alliance, by contrast, appears stranded far behind. Under Himanta Biswa Sarma, the BJP has fused development rhetoric with a keen sense of identity politics, crafting a coalition that has proved resilient. A third consecutive term would underline the party’s deepening institutional hold over the state. Kerala, by contrast, may be returning to its old rhythm. For decades, the state has alternated power between the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) with metronomic regularity. The LDF broke that pattern in the last election, securing an unprecedented second term. Exit polls now suggest that experiment may be short-lived. Most projections place the UDF comfortably above the 71-seat majority mark in the 140-member assembly, with the LDF trailing significantly. If borne out, this would reaffirm Kerala’s instinctive resistance to prolonged incumbency. Governance records matter here, but so does a deeply ingrained political culture that treats alternation as a form of accountability. Familiar Duel? Tamil Nadu, long dominated by its Dravidian titans, shows little appetite for disruption as per most exit polls, which place M.K. Stalin’s DMK-led alliance above the halfway mark of 118 in the 234-seat assembly. Yet, some sections have suggested a possible upset could be staged by actor Vijay’s TVK, the wildcard in the Tamil Nadu battle. Most polls, however, are clear that the opposition AIADMK alliance, though competitive, seems unlikely to unseat the incumbent DMK. In Puducherry, the smallest of the five contests, the implications may nonetheless be outsized. Exit polls give the BJP-led alliance a clear majority in the 30-seat assembly, relegating the Congress-led bloc to a distant second. Numerically modest, the result would carry symbolic weight. A victory here would further entrench the BJP’s presence in the south, a region where it has historically struggled to gain ground. For all their allure, exit polls are imperfect instruments. They rest on limited samples, extrapolated across vast and diverse electorates. In a country where millions vote, the opinions of a few thousand can only approximate reality and often fail to capture its nuances. There is also the problem of the ‘silent voter’ - individuals who either conceal their preferences or shift them late. Recent elections have offered ample reminders. In states such as Haryana and Jharkhand, and even in Maharashtra where margins were misjudged, exit polls have erred, and sometimes dramatically sp. Moreover, the modern exit poll is as much a media event as a methodological exercise. Packaged with graphics, debates and breathless commentary, it fills the void between voting and counting with a sense of immediacy that may be more theatrical than analytical. That said, to dismiss them entirely would be too easy. Exit polls do serve a purpose in sketching broad contours, highlighting regional variations and offering clues about voter sentiment. For political parties, they are early signals and act as tentative guides for observers. Taken together, this cycle’s exit polls suggest a broad, if tentative, pattern of the BJP consolidating in the east and north-east, and opposition alliances regaining ground in parts of the south, and continuity prevailing in key states. But patterns are not outcomes and only counted votes confer legitimacy. It is only on May 4 when the sealed electronic voting machines will deliver that clarity. They will determine whether Bengal witnesses a political rupture or a resilient incumbent, whether Assam’s stability holds, whether Kerala’s pendulum swings back, and whether Tamil Nadu stays its course. (The writer is a senior journalist and political analyst. Views personel.)

Drains and Waterways Are Not for Dumping Plastic

Plastic does not simply disappear after we throw it away — it clogs drains, chokes rivers, and worsens floods.

In my article last week, we followed a trail with Meir and Advay and learned how the plastics we discard travel to the seas and oceans — through small and large gutters, rivers, estuaries, and creeks.


Now, let us see what this plastic waste does to those waterways before it finally reaches the sea.


Many a time, you may have seen photographs, reels, or documentaries showing safai kamgars climbing down into manholes with sewage water flowing below, pulling out heaps of plastic bottles, polythene bags, wrappers, and other plastic waste, all smeared with muck.


That disturbing image tells us something important: plastic does not simply “go away” after we throw it out. It gets trapped in drains, chokes waterways, and blocks the natural flow of water.


Do you remember 26th July 2005? That day, unprecedented rains caused devastating floods in Mumbai and the surrounding region, bringing the city to a standstill. Mumbai’s lifelines were disrupted. Many lives were lost. People were stranded in local trains, buses, offices, homes, and on roads for long hours, some even overnight.


Later, it emerged that the city’s century-old stormwater drainage system had been clogged at several places with garbage—much of it was plastic waste—along with silt.

The Mithi River, which serves as the primary stormwater drain for the city, has also been choked with sludge, sewage, and waste, much of it plastic, preventing floodwater from draining into the sea.


While the July 2005 deluge was exceptionally severe, such scenes are not unique to Mumbai.


Across India, in both cities and smaller towns, drains and waterways are routinely clogged with plastic waste. During heavy rains, the result is often the same: waterlogging, flooding, property damage, disruption of daily life, and sometimes, tragic loss of life.


And the journey of plastic does not stop there.


Plastic waste from gutters and drains eventually flows into rivers — directly or indirectly. Rivers then become the great carriers of this waste, transporting it over long distances before dumping it into the sea.


A paper published in Science Advances in 2021 noted that more than 1,000 rivers across the world carry nearly 80 per cent of the total plastic waste entering the oceans.


What is especially striking is this: it may not be only a few large rivers that are responsible. Many smaller, urban rivers may together be contributing a major share of the plastic that reaches the oceans.


India ranks second among the top twenty countries with high riverine plastic emissions, both nationally and globally.


Studies show that the Indus, Brahmaputra, and Ganga are among the country’s biggest plastic-carrying rivers and are part of the ten rivers worldwide that drain over 90 per cent of total plastic debris into the sea.


Among them, the Indus is believed to carry the second-highest amount of plastic to the sea globally, while the Brahmaputra and Ganga together rank sixth.

And this waste does not come only from large cities.


It also comes from smaller towns and villages located along riverbanks, where plastic is often dumped carelessly, carried away by rainwater, or swept into streams and tributaries that feed the larger rivers.


Apart from everyday plastic waste, rivers also carry another major category of plastic pollution: abandoned, lost, torn, and discarded fishing gear.


This includes ropes, strings, nets, floats, and fishing lines.


These items are made from different forms of plastic, including nylon, polyethylene, PCT (a high-performance thermoplastic polyester), HDPE, and PP.


Fisherfolk often try to repair and reuse torn nets. But many damaged nets eventually get discarded.


When there is little awareness about proper disposal, and when regulations are weak or poorly enforced, these worn-out fishing gears often pile up along riverbanks—or end up directly in the river itself—adding to the growing plastic burden.


So, the story of plastic pollution is not only about what floats in the sea.


It begins much earlier — in our streets, our drains, our rivers, and our everyday habits.


The trail will continue. Till then, have a wonderful weekend!


(The author is an environmentalist. Views Personal.)

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