The Congress party’s no-confidence in exit polls is not because the polls predict a loss for Shashi Tharoor. The party would have taken a Tharoor loss in its stride if the exit polls had predicted overall better numbers for the Congress and the Congress-led UPA. Unfortunately, to the horror of Congress and UPA supporters, every one of the eight exit polls place the Congress and UPA in the dumps, with the Congress unable to break out of double digits this time, too.

To compound the crime, all but a couple of the exit polls predict sweeping victories for the BJP and the NDA, with every one of them giving the credit for the victory to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Naturally, while Modi “bhakts” are on Cloud 9, the legions who voted against Modi in 2014 and must have also in 2019 are in a state of shock, unable to accept even the suggestion that the party/alliance they voted for could lose.

These folks have taken to social media in hordes and have sought to comfort each other, largely succeeding in doing so, too, and getting out of the blues with the realization that “exit polls are not exact polls”; that exit polls regularly keep going awry and had done just that the other day while predicting the Australian elections, not one but 50 exit polls going wrong, one of them by IPSOS which has also predicted a Modi victory in these general elections.

Several of the exit polls have predicted that the BJP will do better than the SP-BSP-RLD gathbandhan in Uttar Pradesh, with at least two holding forth that the BJP will notch up 60+ seats. “How is that possible?” ask GTB supporters. “The arithmetic does not add up.” Maybe right, but it could be chemistry at play. Something that Modi said or promised that caught the imagination, struck a chord in the very people who make up the arithmetic.

That being said, exit polls can be out the window in spite and despite of a big promise made or the extraordinary performance of a party/alliance in the fray. Like in 2004 when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee NDA government went to town with “Shining India” and the exit polls made hay on it, till came the day when the votes were actually counted. This time, May 23 will be when votes would be counted for GE 2019 and those will be the results which will decide who rules India for the next five years.

Yet, pollster-turned-politician Yogendra Yadav is not ready to junk exit polls. According to him, if more than one exit poll predict a certain outcome, then they ought to be taken seriously because what the exit polls are predicting is a trend which would more than likely come true. Accordingly, Yadav has already predicted a Modi victory on May 23. His only rider: It’s to be seen whether the numbers will make Modi PM again or not?

The exit polls predict that the outcome for GE 2019 will be decided by three states, namely Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha. They also say that these three states will surprise and startle. Trinamool Chief Mamata Banerjee has rubbished the exit polls as “gossip”. She has given a call to “stay united”, a cry which has also gone from Chandrababu Naidu and to which Shashi Tharoor has added his voice. Tharoor will never believe an exit poll if it hits him in the head. Exit polls are like Ripley’s ‘Believe It or Not’. (IPA Service)