AND THE WINNER IS... 

NDTV - INDIAN EXPRESS EXIT POLL 

Exit Poll – Phases I & II

In the two exit polls, a total of 112 Lok Sabha constituencies were covered out of the 278 that went to the polls in the first two rounds. 

Based on the findings of the exit polls and the earlier opinion polls, this article has been prepared by Dr. Prannoy Roy, I P Bajpai, Namrata Gupta, Saba Siddiqui, Dorab R. Sopariwala and Yogendra Yadav. 

The Indian Express and New Delhi Television (NDTV) have jointly commissioned A C Nielsen, a leading market research agency, to conduct fieldwork for a series of opinion and exit polls to gauge the voting intentions of the electorate as well to seek their views on a range of subjects and personalities. The exit polls will be conducted in four phases – to correspond with the four phases of the elections. 

Ten large states have gone to the polls in the first two rounds on April 20 and April 26. Of these ten, polling covered all the seats in two states, namely Gujarat and Chhattisgarh in the first phase. In the second phase, the elections were completed in six other states, namely Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Assam and Orissa. In Bihar, voting is being conducted in three phases, with the Phase II voting to be held on next May 5 In UP, the April 26 phase is the first phase, with two more phases to come. The projections for Phase 1 and Phase II are based on exit polls, while those for Phase III are computed from the results of opinion polls. 

The national projection in this article is based on a three-fold aggregation. For the seats that have already voted, the projection is based on the exit polls. For all the other seats (that will go to the polls in the last two phases on May 3 and May 10), the projection is based on the opinion poll completed in mid-March. 

But some words of caution. All polls – opinion and exit – are subject to margins of error. The sampling error in this poll differs across the different states, with the highest range of error not exceeding ±3%. 

NDA: Slipping below the half way mark 

The latest projections indicate that the NDA may have trouble getting a majority. The NDA’s main success so far has come from Karnataka and it has managed to hold on to its position in Maharashtra. The bad news in the first phase of the exit polls in Andhra Pradesh has been confirmed in Phase II and there are clear indications that the TDP seats will be reduced to a single digit. In Bihar too, the findings of the exit poll in the first phase are repeated in the second phase. This would also mean a loss of seats for the NDA. In UP, the early indications in the first phase exit polls suggest that the BJP is likely to lose some seats. 

The battle now is really on and the NDA needs to do really well in the next two phases of polling, and in particular in UP, if the NDA is to hit the half way mark. 

[Indian Express-NDTV opinion poll; fieldwork by A C Nielsen]

Source: NDTV.com