Events

The Politics Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) invites you to a discussion on:

Re-orienting Exit Polls 

Thursday, 17th October 2024, 5:30 PM IST online via Zoom

Panelists:
Rukmini S, Founder & Director, Data for India
Neelanjan Sircar, Associate Professor, Ahmedabad University
Rajat Sethi, Political Commentator and Author

Moderator:
Rahul Verma, Fellow, CPR

About the Discussion
In the past few months, Exit polls in India are facing intense criticism and scrutiny due to inaccurate forecasts of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as well as recently concluded Assembly Elections in Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir. It would be important to mention that some of the polling agencies had a fairly robust track record for the past few years. Even if they got the exact seat projections wrong, they were most often able to get the direction of the results (and vote shares) largely right. Now the skewed predictions are not just limited to seats forecast, but also the direction of vote estimates. This creates a serious lacunae for academics, journalists, and political strategists who rely on such data to study elections and voting behaviour. The panel would discuss the possible reasons for the inaccurate predictions, and what could be done to re-orient exit poll exercise for a more desirable outcome.