The Congress lambasted the exit polls, branding them as “spurious” and alleging a “deliberate effort to rationalize tampering” of the elections, suggesting they’re part of “psychological maneuvers” orchestrated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demoralize INDIA bloc workers.
Former Congress leader Rahul Gandhi dismissed the exit polls as “Modi media propaganda”. “This is not an exit poll; it’s the ‘Modi media survey’. It’s Modi’s survey, his illusionary poll,” Gandhi asserted to reporters at the AICC headquarters following a virtual meeting with the party’s Lok Sabha MPs.
When queried about the projected number of seats for the INDIA bloc, Gandhi quipped, “Are you familiar with Sidhu Moose Wala’s track ‘295’? So, 295 (seats).”
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh also criticized Prime Minister Modi for convening multiple meetings, including a protracted brainstorming session to evaluate the 100-day agenda of the “new government”, characterizing these actions as “coercive tactics” intended to send a message to the bureaucracy and administrative apparatus indicating his imminent return.
“These are psychological ploys—’I’m making a comeback, I’ll reclaim the prime ministerial position’. It’s a signal to the bureaucracy, the administrative framework of the nation, and we trust that the civil servants tasked with ensuring a fair vote count will not succumb to intimidation or be swayed by these coercive tactics,” Ramesh conveyed to PTI at the AICC headquarters.
Subsequently, in a post on X, Ramesh remarked, “The outgoing Prime Minister will continue playing mind games until the very end. His media handlers released reports today of him holding seven meetings. I’m certain they’ll publicize more meetings tomorrow—but by the evening of the 4th, the outgoing Prime Minister will have transitioned into the former Prime Minister.”
Speaking with PTI, Ramesh reiterated that the exit polls released on Saturday evening are “wholly spurious” and have been “engineered and orchestrated by the man whose exit is imminent and inevitable on June 4”.
“These are all part of the psychological maneuvers being orchestrated by the outgoing Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) and the outgoing Home Minister (Amit Shah). The outgoing Home Minister contacted 150 district magistrates and collectors yesterday. The results of the exit polls bear no resemblance to reality,” the Congress leader asserted.
Exit polls on Saturday indicated that Prime Minister Modi is poised to secure a third consecutive term, with the BJP-led NDA projected to secure a significant majority in the Lok Sabha polls.
While India Today-Axis My India has projected 361-401 seats for the BJP-led coalition and 131-166 seats for the INDIA bloc in the 543-member Lok Sabha, the ABP-C Voter forecasted 353-383 seats for the ruling coalition and 152-182 seats for the opposition alliance.
Criticizing the exit polls, Ramesh noted that in some states, the NDA has been allocated more seats than the total available seats in that state.
“It contradicts all political feedback. The INDIA ‘janbandhan’ parties convened yesterday; we conducted a state-wise analysis and there is no scenario where INDIA janbandhan would secure less than 295 seats,” Ramesh contended.
“This is a deliberate effort to rationalize tampering, a deliberate effort to justify EVM manipulation, and also a psychological tactic to undermine the morale of Congress workers and INDIA janbandhan workers. We will not be intimidated, we will not be cowed, and you will witness that the actual results on June 4 will diverge significantly from what these exit polls suggest,” the Congress general secretary asserted. These are political exit polls and not professional exit polls, he added.
Ramesh highlighted that Congress treasurer and senior leader Ajay Maken has raised concerns regarding the exclusion of candidates’ counting agents at the Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) table.