Election Exit Poll India: Exit polls indicate which party or coalition may form the next government

As voting ends in the seventh and last phase of the national election, voters across the country await the final results. The counting of votes will start on May 23. Before the results, pollsters put out their Lok Sabha exit poll 2019, which are an indicator of the results. Voting began on April 11 and were subsequently held across 543 seats over seven phases. While the election was largely peaceful, instances of violence were reported in each phase, particularly in West Bengal.

To form a majority government in the centre, a party or a coalition needs at least 272 seats in the Lok Sabha. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance expects to win a majority and return to power with an even bigger mandate. On the other hand, the opposition parties expect to make a dent in the NDA's tally, enough to keep it short of the halfway mark.

What Are Exit Polls?

Exit polls are a survey of voters that is conducted after they have left the polling station. Exit polls indicate which party or coalition may form the next government.

How Is Different From Opinion Polls?

While an opinion poll asks voters which party they intend to vote for, an election exit poll asks voters the party for which they actually voted.

How Are Exit Polls Conducted?

Different methods are used by each pollster. The first step for any agency conducting an exit poll is sampling. A sample of an electorate, comprising a mix of different genders, age groups, communities, etc. is used to conduct the survey in each constituency.

How Accurate Are Exit Polls?

While each agency uses a sample representative of a constituency, most of them can go either way. Lok Sabha elections are known to unpredictable and in several cases, the exit polls have been wrong by a significant margin.

When Can Exit Polls Be Made Public?

Even though voting in 91 seats ended after the first phase of voting on April 11, election exit poll could not have been telecast for those constituencies until the end of polling in all phase. Section 126A of the Representation of the People Act states that "no person shall conduct any exit poll and publish or publicise by means of the print or electronic media... the result of any exit poll during such period... In case of a general election, the period may commence from the beginning of the hours fixed for poll on the first day of poll and continue till half an hour after closing of the poll in all the states and union territories."