Bihar exit polls prove wrong media pundits

Exit polls have defied the perception built by a section of the media and the Mahagathbandhan strategists that the Bihar election was “done and dusted” after the first two phases and the other three phases were only to decide the margin of victory of the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U)-RJD-Congress Grand Coalition over its rival NDA.

The perception was built more by aggressive word of mouth publicity than by written words or other means of communication. After letting loose the consciously-built hype, the leaders of the Mahagathbandhan went on an overdrive claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had “fled the Bihar campaign” and the BJP was tearing away his posters and hoardings to protect him from post-poll ignominy. In this psychological/perception war it didn’t matter that Modi returned after conclusion of the Navratra festivities to campaign vigorously and hoardings bearing his and BJP



chief Amit Shah’s pictures were all over Patna and the districts of Bihar.

Two exit polls, NewsX-CNX (130-140) and ABP-AC Nielsen (130) predict decisive victory for the Nitish-led alliance while two others predicted decisive victory for NDA. News24-Today Chankaya, which has often hit bullseye, predicted 155 seats for the NDA and NDTV-Hansa, which conducted a more thorough exit poll with a sample size of 76,000 and analysed it in greater detail, came out with the conclusion that the BJP-led NDA could win 120-130 seats.

The Mahagathbandhan strategists and those who read these elections to be closed after the first two rounds may have the last laugh when the votes are counted tomorrow but for now, exit polls suggest that they got it all wrong. Or the pollsters conducting the exit polls could have picked up wrong trend in the first two rounds.