Exit polls are wrong most of the times: Gehlot

Team Udayavani, May 20, 2019, 7:39 PM IST

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Jaipur: Questioning the reliability of exit polls that have forecast a near clean sweep by the BJP in Rajasthan, chief minister Ashok Gehlot Monday said that the pollsters’ projections were wrong most of the times in the past.

He said the Congress’ performance in the elections will be good and that the party’s candidates on all the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state were confident.

Most exit polls Sunday forecast another term for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with some of them projecting that BJP-led NDA will get more than 300 seats to comfortably cross the majority mark of 272 in the Lok Sabha.

In Rajasthan, the pollsters’ forecast said that the Congress was likely to win only five seats as the remaining are expected to be bagged by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“Performance (of Congress) will be good. Exit polls have proved totally wrong several times,” Gehlot told reporters here.

“Exit polls were in favour of the then Atal Bihari Vajpyee government in 2004 and an atmosphere was created through slogans like ‘India Shining’ and ‘Feel Good’ in advertisements but UPA government came to power and ruled for ten years,” he added.

The veteran Congress leader said that he had spoken to party candidates on all the seats and they were confident about winning.

“Exit polls are not necessarily correct always rather they have turned out to be wrong most of the time,” he said.

The chief minister further lashed out at the Election Commission, saying it was left with no credibility as it was for the first time since independence that so many allegations were levelled against the poll panel in the general election concluded on Sunday.

On the credibility of EVMs, the chief minister said that the Supreme Court was convinced that tempering with EVMs is possible therefore VVPAT machines were introduced.

He said the doubts raised by the opposition parties on the credibility of EVMs was in the larger interest of public and the country’s democracy.

He also said that the Congress governments in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh will complete their tenure of five years.