Since the election season began, various groups have been rushing to conduct surveys in different ways and publishing their results at each stage.
Political parties also conduct their own surveys and adjust their strategies based on the public mood. Surveys and exit polls are different things.
While poll results may change, exit polls are meant to tell people who they actually voted for immediately after they cast their ballot.
But this time, Andhra Pradesh is in a state of chaos.
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Some organisations predict that YCP will win with a landslide majority, while others claim that the TDP coalition will win.For every five organisations supporting YCP, there are five supporting TDP.
Exit polls should be close or similar across different agencies. Large discrepancies call into question the credibility of those agencies.
The recent exit polls are a good example of this problem. There is a national consensus among almost all organisations that the NDA coalition will win more than 300 seats and come to power. This consistency suggests that regardless of how many organisations conduct exit polls, the results should be similar.
In contrast, predictions for the Andhra Pradesh elections are inconsistent: half of the predictions favour the YCP, while the other half favour the Telugu Desam Party. This inconsistency suggests that some organisations may be revealing bias rather than objective results.
Reputable organizations like Aaraa that regularly produce surveys fear losing credibility if their estimates are off, while lesser-known companies are not afraid to publish questionable exit polls.
Because of this contradiction, some people joke that it would be better to call it a “kitchen recipe survey” rather than an exit poll.
