On Thursday, 23 May, Election Commission’s trends predicted a landslide victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Four days prior, exit polls from various pollsters predicted a massive mandate for the Narendra Modi-led government.
At a panel on India Today news channel, Axis My India’s Chairman Pradeep Gupta broke down after the leads proved to be in tandem with what the exit polls had predicted on 19 May.
The seat-wise predictions published by the pollster were removed from several webpages, including Axis’ official website, after Tweeple flagged errors in some of its predictions. Axis had predicted 339 to 365 seats for the NDA.
In a video tweeted by anchor Rahul Kanwal, psephologist Pradeep Gupta can be seen getting emotional. Kanwal said: “An emotional moment for Axis My India Psephologist @PradeepGuptaAMI as the pressure releases while his predictions stand vindicated #ResultsOnIndiaToday #ElectionResults2019” (sic).
In the video, Rahul Kanwal can be heard saying,
“We have been trolled mercilessly over the last several days by people who have said all kinds of things… the fact is, you (people) have been misled. Do not doubt exit polls, do not doubt India’s post-poll studies.. hats off to every single member of that (Axis My India) team.”
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