The relatively high turnout of voters in Maharashtra appears to have foxed exit pollsters, too.
The relatively high turnout of voters in Maharashtra appears to have foxed exit pollsters, too. From a clean sweep of 171 to a bare majority of 145 to a low of 125 seats for the Congress-NCP alliance, a whole range of possibilities has been opened up in the state assembly elections held on Tuesday.
While Today’s Chanakya, polling for Live India, gave the Congress-NCP 171 seats (give or take nine), the Star Maaza channel gave it 125, just six seats more than the Shiv Sena-BJP’s 119. The CNN-IBN-Lokmat exit poll put the Congress-NCP just under the halfway mark, in the range of 135-145. The Sena-BJP gets only 105-115 in this version.
Two of the polls give Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) 17-18 seats, with IBN giving it a lower number of 8-12 seats. Either way, the MNS appears to have dented or damaged the Sena-BJP’s chances in this election.
Today’s Chanakya, a market research agency that came up with the most accurate predictions for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, presents an optimistic forecast for Congress-NCP. It gives the alliance 171 seats, with the Sena-BJP combine trailing at 85 (plus-minus nine) seats.
In contrast, the exit poll conducted by CNN-IBN in collaboration with Lokmat buttresses popular expectations of a hung assembly. The Star Maaza poll, of course, presents the most intriguing possibilities. For, if both the alliances are just six seats apart, the rebels who won, the MNS and the third front will play kingmakers. There could be a lot of horse-trading ahead.
For Haryana, Today’s Chanakya has predicted a virtual sweep for the Congress. It has estimated that the Congress tally will cross 68 in a 90-member assembly. Vinod Bajaj, who owns and runs Today’s Chanakya, maintains that the rebel factor, which was widely expected to muddy the final picture to produce a hung assembly in Maharashtra, does not seem to have affected the prospects of the ruling alliance.
“The Congress-NCP combination is winning because the people want development and this alliance is seen as best placed to deliver,” says Bajaj. “People have voted for the Congress because of what it stands for today, not because of what it has done or not done over the past five years.”
Bajaj dismissed the popular belief that the MNS is a spoiler for the Shiv Sena alone. He said that Raj Thackeray has also cut into Marathi votes that used to go to the Congress and the NCP and this accounts for his strong performance in Mumbai and Thane.
Interestingly, Bajaj’s research revealed that terrorism is no longer seen by the people of
Mumbai as a state issue. “It is a national issue and people feel that it has to be tackled by the state and central governments jointly,” he said.
At a time when most polls predicted a hung Parliament in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, Today’s Chanakya stuck its neck out to forecast as many as 191 plus-minus 11 seats for the Congress and an estimated 250 seats for the UPA. He proved to be the closest to the target when the Congress left everyone gasping by surging past the 200 mark to win 206 seats on its own.
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