Small victory for India's election pollsters

INDIA-- Exit pollsters made a better fist of predicting the outcome of India's election this year, following an embarrassing miscall in 2004 – but the results were still far from perfect.

Surveys of voters did point to a win for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), led by the incumbent Congress Party, however the scale of their eventual victory was underestimated.

Exit polls suggested the UPA would win between 185 and 205 seats of the 543 parliamentary seats up for grabs. The rival National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was predicted to win 142 to 198 seats, while between 110 and 130 were set to go to the Third Front.

Final results, published by the Election Commission, gave the UPA 262 seats, the NDA 158 and the Third Front just 76.

Exit polls have proved to be unreliable in the past – no more so than in 2004's election, when surveys failed to predict a win for the Congress Party.

Earlier this year, election officials introduced a ban on the publication of exit poll results before ballot boxes close on the grounds that the results were “likely to influence the minds of the electors”.

Author: Brian Tarran