Exit polls expect a more potent overall performance for Narendra Modi’s NDA coalition within the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, with projections exceeding 350 seats, an improvement from 2019. Modi’s Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is anticipated to make sizable gains in southern India, keep dominance in the Hindi heartland, and task Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. Additionally, the BJP is anticipated to perform well in Odisha, potentially scaring Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janta Dal.
Historically, no political birthday celebration except the Indian National Congress has secured over 400 seats in Indian elections. Despite optimistic go-out ballot projections, their accuracy is regularly uncertain. Past elections have shown discrepancies between go-out polls and real results. For example, in 2004, go-out polls forecasted an NDA victory because of the ‘India Shining’ campaign. Yet, the BJP’s seats dropped from 182 to 138, at the same time as Congress, with one hundred forty-five seats, shaped the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Similarly, in 2021, go-out polls underestimated Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, which gained 215 out of 294 seats, as compared to the BJP’s seventy-seven.
The NDA’s success in the 2014 and 2019 elections became appropriately expected by going out polls, with the BJP securing 282 and 303 seats, respectively. This time, opposition parties, united beneath the INDIA bloc, disregard the go-out polls as biased. Congress veteran Sonia Gandhi expressed self-assurance in opposite outcomes, declaring, “We need to wait and see.” West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee criticized the go-out polls, calling them fabricated and historically misguided.
The genuine outcome can be discovered whilst vote counting starts at eight am on Tuesday, June four. Whether the go-out ballot predictions are preserved or an unexpected result emerges, the final tally will decide the following section of Indian politics.
