India Exit Polls Spark Criticism, Tears and Calls for Probes
- Pre-result surveys predicted a landslide win for Modi’s BJP
- Analysts cite sample sizes, limited budgets as problems
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India’s wildly inaccurate exit polls predicting a landslide election victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party sparked dramatic public apologies from polling companies this week and calls for them to be investigated for possible manipulation.
Almost all of the exit polls released on June 1 forecast Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies would win more than 350 seats in the lower house of the parliament. The final results released three days later put the coalition’s tally at just 293 seats.