How Accurate Were the Rajasthan Exit Poll Results in the 2018 Assembly Election?

Rajasthan: Check what the prominent exit polls had predicted in 2018, and whether they matched the final results.

The final results of the Rajasthan 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 Rajasthan 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's CNX was right in forecasting Congress emerging as the majority party and BJP coming in the second place. However, they overestimated BJP's haul by predicting 85 seats and underestimated the seats won by Others.

Republic's Jan ki Baat got it wrong as they predicted BJP winning a majority of the seats within a range of 83-103 and Congress coming in the second place with 81-101 seats.

Republic's CVoter was right in predicting the Congress emerging as the single largest party but overestimated their haul by giving it a range of 129-145 seats, when actually they won in 100 seats. They underestimated BJP's haul by predicting 52-68 seats and they won 73 seats.

India Today's Axis My India and NewsX's Neta were accurate in predicting Congress emerging as the single largest party but overestimated their haul. However, they underestimated the number of seats won by Others.

Today's Chanakya was right in predicting Congress emerging as the majority party and BJP coming in second. However, their range for BJP was quite wide between 56-80 seats and overestimated the seats won by Congress.

ABP News' CSDS was spot on in their forecast with Congress' tally but overestimated the BJP's tally by 10 seats.

News Nation got it right, predicting Congress winning between 99-103 seats but overestimated the range for BJP and underestimated the seats won by Others.

So out of the eight exit polls we looked at, only one got it wrong. However, no exit poll was accurate in predicting the tallies of the contesting parties. Overall, except for one, there was a clear, unanimous pick that came through in the exit polls of 2018 Rajasthan 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 Rajasthan's Counting Day as we get you the answer to that question, and much more, with live news, updates and election results analysis.