You should know better than to take those exit polls at face value—just as pollsters find data to confirm their own biases, we gravitate to pollsters who confirm our biases. The wise and the chastened will wait for Judgement Day. Exit polls, some will remember, did go spectacularly wrong in 2004—remember the BJP’s ‘India Shining’ campaign? They went wrong in various assembly elections too— Bihar and Delhi in 2015, Uttar Pradesh in 2017, Karnataka in 2023, to name just a few.
The 2024 elections were even harder to call because people were hesitant to speak their minds in public—an air of fear and mistrust made even the garrulous Indian wary. Even those who want change and voted for it sounded wary of even contemplating that the INDIA bloc might pull off an upset win. Before the elections got underway on 19 April, few would have expected the ‘ragtag’ INDIA bloc to put up a half-decent challenge to the might of Modi’s BJP.
Distrust of a partisan Election Commission and the electoral process—never as high as this year—also contributed to the belief that the people’s mandate may be stolen. If the Opposition bloc does pull it off (which looks highly probable at the time of going to press on 30 May), it will have a savvy electorate to thank as well, for fighting a marauding regime that did its damnedest to thwart the political opposition. In the circumstances, it was a heroic fight.
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I.A unites to save democracy The INDIA bloc�.
