Amid outrage over exit pollsters getting the Lok Sabha election 2024 result predictions wrong, poll strategist Prashant Kishor on Friday said he will discontinue projecting number of seats for parties in elections going further.
Most exit poll surveyors predicted a sweeping majority for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which managed to secure a reduced majority in the general elections 2024, defying the predictions.
As exit polls got it wrong, Opposition bloc INDIA hit out at the BJP, its top leaders Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, for being behind a "stock market scam", referring to the fluctuation in Sensex and Nifty as a result of the incorrect projections of the pollsters.
Amid this, election strategist Prashant Kishor on Friday accepted that his predictions for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections went wrong and said that he was "ready to eat the humble pie" for the inaccuracies in his pre-poll assessments.
"Yes, I and pollsters like me got it wrong. We are ready to eat the humble pie," Prashant Kishor said in an interview with India Today TV after the Lok Sabha election results.
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When asked whether he would continue predicting numbers in future elections in the country, the pollster said, "No, I would not get into the number of seats in elections anymore".
After polling for the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections ended, Prashant Kishor had predicted that the BJP would repeat its 2019 performance, scoring around 300 seats or more in the 2024 general elections, in which it ended up scoring 240 and its allies bagged 53 more seats. In 2019 general elections, BJP alone had won 303 Lok Sabha seats.
In a post on microblogging platform on X on May 23, Prashant Kishor had taken a swipe at 'rattled' detractors, advising them to "stay hydrated" and "keep plenty of water handy on June 4", the day of the counting of votes. "Drinking water is good as it keeps both mind and body hydrated. Those who are RATTLED with my assessment of outcome of this election must keep plenty of water handy on June 4th. PS: Remember, 02nd May, 2021 and #West Bengal!!" Kishor had said in the post.
"I had put my assessment in front of you and I have to admit on camera that the assessment that I did was wrong in terms of numbers by a big 20 per cent. We were saying BJP would get somewhere close to 300 and they got 240. But I had earlier said that there was a little anger, but no widespread discontent against Narendra Modi," India Today quoted Prashat Kishor as saying on Friday.
"I had also said that there was no positive clamour from the opposition and that is why a status quo is being created with some geographical expansion in the east and south," Kishor said, adding that now, "obviously, we have been proved wrong. But if you just go beyond the numbers, it's not that wrong. Because ultimately, they got 36 per cent vote share, which is the status quo. 0.7 per cent down in terms of vote share".
