Lok Sabha Results 2024: Did Any Exit Poll Manage to Predict it Accurately?

Check how different were the final results from the forecast of the pollsters

(Design: Kamran Akhter / The Quint)

It may be said that the results of 2024 Lok Sabha elections were surprising for many. While the BJP was confident of bettering their numbers of 2014 and 2019, their final tally could only reach 240 – a big drop of 63 seats from the last elections.

The belief that BJP will get a decisive mandate was further cemented by the exit polls, which are popularly being projected as the indicators of voting trends in the elections. However, these polls have an erratic track record. Sometimes they correspond, and at other times, they contradict the final results.

So, did any of the pollster manage to forecast the outcome of the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 correctly?

Poll-by-Poll Analysis

Before we get down to the analysis, let's look at the number of seats predicted for NDA, INDIA, and Others by the prominent exit polls.

How accurate were exit polls in Lok Sabha elections 2024

(Graphic: Ishika Gupta / The Quint Lab)

India Today-Axis My India overestimated NDA's seat tally by a margin of 69-109. By extending the range over 400, it claimed that BJP's slogan of #AbKiBaar400paar will become a reality for the NDA bloc. They also underestimated INDIA alliance’s seat tally by similarly huge margin.

ABP-CVoter, too, over-inflated NDA's haul by placing it within the range of 353-383, while the actual seats won by the bloc are 292. In contrast, it placed the Congress-led INDIA bloc at a much lower range of 152-182, much than the actual seats they won, which is 234. 

Times Now-ETG and Republic TV-P Marq also fell off the mark, exaggerating the NDA-bloc’s seat tally by 56 and 57 respectively, while discounting INDIA bloc’s tally by over 80 seats. They also overestimated the seats won by Others, which stood at 17.

How accurate were exit polls in Lok Sabha elections 2024

(Graphic: Ishika Gupta / The Quint Lab)

India News-D Dynamic predicted that the NDA will get 100 seat more than the majority mark of 272. But the final tally stood just 20 seats more than the majority. It grossly underestimated INDIA's seat count by 110 seats. It also overestimated Others' seat count by more than 2.5 times than the actually tally.

India TV-CNX's upper range also brought NDA's tally to over 400. Similar to all other pollsters, they underestimated INDIA's tally by about 100 seats.

News24-Chanakya was also among the channels that overstated the total seat tally by awarding it 400 seats in contrast to its victory on 292. It also under-calculated the INDIA bloc’s seat tally which it placed at 107, differing significantly from their actual tally of 234.

Jan Ki Bat also severely overestimated NDA seat tally, while underestimating the INDIA bloc’s performance. However, it was correct in predicting the number of seats won by Others within a range of 1-20.

So out of the eight exit polls we looked at, while all were right in their prediction of the winning side, but massively inflated the seat count. All of the pollsters wrongfully calculated the seat count of the two alliances with far-off predictions. Finally, while exit polls have been in sync with the outcomes of the previous three General Elections, the predictions in 2024 differed significantly from the actual results, creating a wrong perception and undermining the entire exercise of gauging the polling trends.