The final results of the Mizoram Assembly elections 2023 will only come in on Counting Day, 3 December, but as polling concludes, different pollsters and news channels are releasing their exit poll results.
Exit polls are usually seen as an indicator of polling trends. Sometimes, they have proven to be in sync with the final results, but on other occasions, they have ended up being inaccurate.
So, how accurate were the exit polls in the previous Mizoram Assembly election, in 2018?
Here's what the prominent exit polls had predicted in 2018. Let's take a look at the numbers before we get down to the detailed analysis.
Poll-by-Poll Analysis: Who Got It Right, Who Was off the Mark?
Times Now-CNX was accurate in their exit poll on MNF winning a majority but underestimated the winning seats and overestimated the Congress' haul by quite a bit.
India Today- Axis My India exit poll got the range of the tally of MNF right. The range for Congress was inaccurate. Their overall forecast was accurate with MNF winning a majority.
NewX- Neta was correct on MNF winning a majority but was inaccurate in forecasting the tallies of the parties. It predicted Congress winning 15 seats and MNF winning 19 seats; it turned out that Congress actually won 4 and MNF had a majority of 27 seats.
So out of the three exit polls we looked at, all of them were right in predicting that MNF would emerge as the single largest party. However, there were differences in the tallies predicted of the parties to the actual numbers. Overall, there was a unanimous, clear pick of the winning party in the exit polls of 2018 Mizoram elections.
Will the exit polls get it right in 2023? None of us will have the answer to that question till 3 December! But do tune in to The Quint on Mizoram's Counting Day as we get you the answer to that question, and much more, with live news, updates and election results analysis.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)