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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.)

Two lakh deaths - but who cares? 

India’s lethal air has become so routine that even mass mortality now struggles to provoke political urgency.

 

India’s national capital is choking as it always does, under a winter blanket of smog that has long ceased to shock. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta has responded by urging half the city’s office workforce to work from home - a palliative that only serves to starkly underscore the enduring helplessness of governments in tackling the poison in the air.


Delhi is not the only city which is battling deteriorating air quality; there are many Indian cities going through the environmental ordeal. Mumbai, Kanpur, Indore, Ghaziabad, Jaipur, Hapur and NOIDA are the other cities.


I vividly recall the Union Minister for Forest and Environment and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Prakash Javdekar who had boasted in Parliament that his ministry would tackle pollution quicker than what China did. Javdekar’s last stint as MoEFCC was in 2021. He was twice in charge of this key portfolio but pollution levels grew constantly year after year. His claims for NCR in 2019 remain on paper only.


Delhi’s thick air has been floating low for decades during which Congress, BJP and AAP ruled the historic city; they had all claimed to have addressed it while also blaming each other for the sake of optics. Meanwhile, Delhiites have been endlessly suffering smog, inhaling fine dust particles and facing vehicular pollution. Delhi has two crore citizens and a big floating population of neighbouring Rajasthan, UP, Punjab and Haryana daily, making the Indian capital clearly unliveable by any standard. Isn't it a national shame?


Beijing lesson

I visited Beijing in 2008, the year when the Summer Olympics were to be held in the Chinese capital. (Incidentally, the city is the only city which hosted summer and winter Olympics in the history of the games). The government there was much worried about its global image and had put in place everything possible to clear the skies before the athletes from across the world converged upon the ancient city in 2008. The winter games were held much later in 2022. The two Olympic Games within the space of 14 years display the seriousness and magnitude of efforts, as also Government’s genuine commitment towards the sportspersons and citizens alike. We can blame China for many things but can also learn a lot, if we wish to.


So, when BJP’s CM Gupta announces restricted hours of schools and reduction of traffic by permitting 50 percent staff to attend offices, one wonders what did the Union Environment Ministry do under Javdekar.


BJP inherited the challenge from Congress when Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014. Similarly, Rekha Gupta inherited air and river pollution from the AAP Government.


Like Javdekar, motor-mouth Arvind Kejriwal, too, had made umpteen promises about cleaning up the air but they were meant to make headlines more than combating the dangerous air pollution through scientific programmes.


During the recent Chhat Festival, the Yamuna river’s pollution again came to the fore with the shameless Delhi government making a separate small place for VIP dip into cleaner water that was brought through pipelines. It was a puerile effort to divide the smelly, frothy river into two.


As per estimates of a number of international agencies and NGOs, India loses a staggering two lakh people due to air pollution each year. Going by this, under the BJP government at the Centre, India lost at least 20 lakh people owing to diseases related to toxic air breathing.


Should the citizens not be up in arms to defend their lives? Just like Javdekar, Nitin Gadkari, in charge of roads and highways, had been claiming that he would try to reduce road mishaps and deaths. That figure is also bone-chilling - 1.50 lakh per year. But road accidents continue to claim precious lives of Indians, almost daily.


I know Javdekar or Gadkari or Modi alone cannot provide answers to pollution or mishaps but the Government can certainly create robust systems and laws to overcome this herculean challenge. So far, they have failed miserably. Aravali mountain range is under threat; trees are being cut ruthlessly and massive infrastructure is adding to dusty air.


Interestingly, London’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan, had contested his second term promising Londoners that of less pollution. He did that and won the second term. He is serving the third term since 2016.


India, under BJP, is busy erasing all signs of colonialism. It also has a logical hatred for China. All that is fine. But why can’t we learn good things from them to save the lives of Indians? India needs technology and university campuses from the UK but not interested to know what a Mayor does in the globally known beautiful city. We may abhor China (many electronic items and other raw material, including bronze cladding of Sardar Patel statue in Gujarat came from China) but why can’t we learn the art and science of mitigating pollution from them? After all it is the question of lakhs of Indian lives.


(The writer is a senior political and environment journalist based in Bhopal. Views Personal.)

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