The only correct exit poll was not aired

Each of the seven exit polls on Bihar elections shown on the television fell short of the target by far. The one that hit the bull’s eye, curiously, did not make it to the screen.

Four of the exit polls gave a slight edge to the Grand Alliance, two put the bet on the NDA with one even giving it the two-thirds majority. The remaining one predicted a hung Assembly. But each of these pollsters had egg on their face on Sunday as none could predict the Grand Alliance’s impressive victory.

Axis APM’s predictions
But Axis APM’s survey, which had predicted 169-183 seats for the Grand Alliance, was not aired by the channel CNN-IBN, which had commissioned the poll, as it appeared to have reservations about the findings. Sources said CNN-IBN decided not to air it as Axis could not satisfy them on certain questions posed by them.

But its prediction was vindicated when the results came in while Today’s Chanakya,  which had predicted the Lok Sabha poll results accurately, failed. Chanakya predicted 155 seats for the NDA and just 83 for the Grand Alliance but the results showed the Grand Alliance getting 178 and NDA 58.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad, who claimed the alliance would win 190 seats, rubbed it in when he said “only his survey was correct and you (media) all failed” while some of the agencies that conducted the exit polls apologised or accepted that there is a need for introspection. Today’s Chanakya tweeted its apology: “We sincerely apologise (to) all our friends and well wishers for not (being) able to predict Bihar. Congratulations to the winning alliance.”

In October 2014, it had apologised for not getting the Maharashtra Assembly poll predictions rightly.

“The Bihar Assembly election’s exit poll scored a remarkable 100 per cent accuracy rate. In fact, though others were stating a lead by NDA over others, our poll was the only one to predict a JD(U)+ victory with a significant number of seats,” an Axis statement said.

Four pollsters—C-Voter, AC Nielsen, CNX and News Nation (TV channel)—had given the JD(U)-RJD-Congress combine the upper hand with seats ranging from 122 to 140. The NDTV-Hansa Research also gave 125 seats to the NDA and 110 to the Grand Alliance while the Cicero poll predicted a cliffhanger with the NDA getting 119 and Grand Alliance 117.

‘Time to introspect’
Team Cicero tweeted: “Time to introspect and concede that we got our predictions wrong. We congratulate our industry friends who got the numbers right.”

Its leader Dhananjai Joshi tweeted: “I'm disappointed as would be our clients and well wishers. Time to analyse what went wrong in the post/exit poll.”

C-Voter's Yashwant Deshmukh presented his dilemma in responses to tweets. Though C-Voter gave up to 132 seats for the Grand Alliance, he said: “I think we should rethink on our stand on being a conservative ‘seat’  predictor. Seriously.”  He went on to add: “But then going overboard with seats has its own problem. Dont know how to balance in era of #SweepingVerdicts.”