The results for the Assembly elections in five states were announced on 11 March. The BJP won an unprecedented two-thirds majority in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress returned to power in Punjab after a 10-year gap. The BJP won Uttarakhand but was neck and neck with the Congress in Goa and Manipur in the country's biggest mandate since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
A euphoric Bharatiya Janata Party called it a "historic" verdict that would make a major impact on Indian politics even as the Congress admitted it was stunned by the scale of the verdict in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
From being the third largest group in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh assembly, the BJP, powered by an aggressive campaign spearheaded by Modi, catapulted to winning a whopping 325 seats - a never-before showing by any party in the country's most populous state.
However, these results were in contrast to most exit poll projections, which predicted a hung assembly in Uttar Pradesh.
The Quint takes a look at how the exit polls fared during this marathon phase of elections that saw five states going to polls.
News24-Chanakya Gets UP Right
All the exit poll projections for Uttar Pradesh predicted a comeback for the Bharatiya Janata Party.
ABP-CSDS and India TV-CVoter predicted that the BJP would emerge as the largest party, but the two pegged the saffron party to fall short of forming a majority in the state. However, two other agencies - India Today-Axis and News24-Chanakya - gave the ‘lotus’ a sweeping victory.
The closest was News24-Today’s Chanakya, which predicted a sweeping victory for the BJP, with a seat share of 267-303. The Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance followed, with a seat share of 73-103 and Bahujan Samaj Party was pegged to get 15-39 seats.
None of the Exit Polls Could Predict AAP’s Crushing Defeat
None of the exit polls could predict the crushing defeat of the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab. Most of the polls predicted a tight race between the Congress and the AAP, but nobody's prediction was close to the reality, since AAP won only 20 seats.
ABP-CSDS gave Congress a lead in Punjab and predicted that the party was likely to form the government in the state. However, the poll also said that AAP would be the runners up.
On the other hand, India TV-CVoter India exit poll predicted that AAP would form a government, by winning 59 to 67 of the 117 assembly seats in Punjab.
News 24-Chanakya and NewsX-MRC predicted that the results would see the Congress and the AAP go neck to neck. The India Today-Axis exit polls gave 62-71 seats to the Congress and 42-51 to AAP.
No Exit Poll Saw Congress Being Vanquished in Uttarakhand
News24-Today’s Chanakya got it right by giving the BJP a clean victory in Uttarakhand with around 53 ± 7 votes.
India Today-Axis, too, expected the Congress-ruled Uttarakhand to swing in favour of the BJP. While India TV-CVoter India was far off the mark, NewsX-MRC did not see Congress' being vanquished in Uttarakhand.
Meanwhile, the BJP is likely to stake claim to form the government in Goa by crossing the majority mark with support from the smaller parties and independents. But as far as the Goa exit polls are concerned, most of them anticipated the BJP to secure more seats.
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