An analysis of UP exit polls indicate that results could be diametrically opposite
Friday, March 10, 2017
Ask anybody. Last
evening whatever little faith people had on pollsters, mostly evaporated almost totally
after watching the slew of exit polls published yesterday. Even Rajdeep
Sardesai who anchored one such programme on IndiaToday and Shivam Vij, Dy
Editor of HuffPo appeared to have given up on the absurdity viewers were
subjected to last night in the name of exit polls.
Most of these polls
bandied around seat shares, while only a handful were prepared to give details
of their vote shares or survey internals.
While it is difficult to undertake a critique of these polls in all 5
states whose assemblies went for election, due to constraints of time, we limit
our critique to UP as found below. Time permitting we would try to critique exit polls of other states later today..
To note CVoter is an
Exit Poll while both CSDS & Today’s Chankaya (TC) are post polls. As observed
from the table, the commonality among the three polling agencies projections is
that the main contestants are between SP-Congress combine and BJP, with BSP
coming in third position.
The second
commonality is the vote share estimation of the SP-Congress Alliance by all the
three polling agencies is 32-33%. So a consensus exist that the Alliance is up
2-3% from 2014 and in doing so, demonstrating positive momentum with them.
BSP in 2014
registered a tad less than 20% Accordingly, all three polling agencies
acknowledge that BSP too is a net gainer by vote share, with CVoter & CSDS
projecting the magnitude around +5% while according to TC, net gains are
marginal viz around 0.5%.
The real difference
among the polling agencies comes to projections of BJP’s vote share. CVoter
& CSDS projects this in the region of 32-33% - this reflects a 10% negative
swing from 2014 or in other words, the BJP is experiencing strong negative
momentum. The 1.1% difference between CSDS & CVoter is not really
statistically significant as it comes within both polls Margin of Error (MoE). Whereas
TC projects BJP at 42% - practically no change from 2014 Lok Sabha polls where
NDA registered 42.3% So the difference between TC and CDSS-CVoter is basically
accounted by TC squeezing BSP & ‘Others’
The TC projections
are simply flabbergasting for two major reasons as elaborated below:
1. To reach 240-250
seats, the BJP has to maintain a strike rate of 60%+ for every phase, including
the first two phases in Western UP where a very perceptible anti-BJP
wave among the Jats was sensed. Further ground reports from different journalists suggest that the
constituency level fights were very intense that such strike rates as TC projects would
immediately raise suspicions of EVM rigging that would cause huge public uproar
over the fairness of the polls.
2. The internals of
the TC survey strikes immediately as totally contradictory to the numbers TC
projected and have led to widespread suspicion expressed in social media that
their numbers had been crudely manipulated.
3. By and large both pre-polls and exit/post
polls have tended to over-estimate the BJP and under-estimate the opposition
particularly the BSP. Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha insists that the
Alliance do not even see BJP crossing 30% vote threshold. Accordingly, a conservative statistical adjustment for
treatment of such biases could see the Alliance cruise comfortably pass the
finish line with 190+ with BJP trailing far behind at 120 seat levels. See earlier table columns marked in yellow.
Shivam Vij in a
totally captivating article today in HuffPo observed “In such an election, the
BSP is the X factor. It is the BSP's performance that is the most
unpredictable, and the most fortuitous. The more votes the BSP took away, the
more it hurt the BJP, though in many places it seemed to be hurting the
SP-Congress too.” Read full article HERE.
This blog totally share this view of BSP
being the X factor except that we feel the more BSP does well; it tends to more
hurt the BJP rather than the Alliance.
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