It was a usual yet unusual day in Calcutta. A driver was washing his car before his first Uber ride, a woman was carrying plastic bags full of garbage to the bin, and schoolchildren hurried along familiar routes.
Yet something fundamental had shifted, marking the end of an era in Bengal’s politics: Mamata Banerjee is no longer in power. In a way, she has been eliminated from the political scene of Bengal after 15 long years as the supremo.
Khela Hobe probably failed to hold any ground this time around. The familiar rhythms of regional exceptionalism, welfare-centric local narratives, and resistance to “Parivartan” gave way under sustained national trends, organisational machinery, and a perception of inevitability. Or is it something else?
The Frenzy of Elections in India
Elections in India have always generated frenzy, drama, and an unrelenting media spectacle. In Bengal, the recent repolling in 15 booths — 11 of them in Magrahat Paschim and four in Diamond Harbour — following allegations of EVM tampering and voter intimidation, along with a fresh repoll in Falta on May 21 (with counting now slated for May 24), only added layers to the chaos and suspense.
Amid all of this, the usual cast of psephologists and media analysts rolled out their predictive frameworks, including charts, swing analyses, and seat projections, building an atmosphere of suspense and apparent certainty.
Opinion polls, exit polls, and breathless commentary held audiences in a trance until the actual results emerged. For once, many of these exit polls aligned reasonably well with the final outcome.
Yet this apparent “success” reveals less about the prowess of the pollsters and far more about a transformed political reality: a scenario in which large sections of the system and the electorate appear to have yielded to the consolidated might of the BJP.
It seems as though people have essentially “given in” to the trend, if it can still be called a trend anymore. Perhaps it has become more of a habitual voting, or “comfort voting”, if I may exercise the liberty of putting it that way.
Limitations of Psephology
In previous election cycles, the gap between prediction and reality was glaring. In the 2021 Bengal Assembly elections, exit polls projected a tight contest or even a hung Assembly, with some “poll of polls” giving the TMC around 141 seats and the BJP 138.
The actual outcome delivered a decisive TMC victory, while the BJP was reduced to 77 seats. Similar mismatches marked other contests, including aspects of the 2025 Bihar elections.
Pollsters, often reliant on limited samples, selective narratives, and, at times, funding alignments with political patrons, have repeatedly struggled to capture the full picture. Ground-level surveys, even when conducted with integrity, frequently falter against the secret voter’s ultimate verdict and evolving discretion.
In 2021, along with a team of fellow surveyors, I travelled across Assam to map and tap into the “voter’s mind”. While I believe we adhered to the stipulated ethics of ground-based research, we still missed a few constituencies, although the overall tally was fairly impressive.
One limitation in the science of psephology is the mushrooming number of pollsters who, in many cases, have connections to political parties or serve as agents of politicians.
This time, however, convergence occurred. The exit polls were broadly in line with the results. This should not be mistaken for sudden adeptness or a methodological breakthrough on the part of the agencies. What changed was not the quality of the science and art of polling and poll analysis, but the sheer scale of the underlying political shift. When one force achieves overwhelming dominance, even imperfect tools can point in roughly the right direction.
It then becomes more of a dart game than actual predictive accuracy, which ideally includes multilayered, research-based surveys, extensive engagement in electoral constituencies, the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis, assessments of voters’ responses, and finally the preparation of a report based on honest ground reporting and rigorous analysis.
Why the Obsession with Exit Poll Predictions Continues
The “exit poll drug” retains its hold not because psephologists have suddenly mastered their craft, but because it feeds the thrill of anticipation in a high-stakes democracy.
When outcomes become lopsided due to structural and political realities — strong organisational presence, ideological consolidation, fatigue with alternatives, or perceived inevitability — the gap between prediction and result narrows naturally. Pollsters benefit from the optics of accuracy without necessarily earning deeper credibility.
Beneath the charts and projections, Indian elections remain a complex interplay of welfare promises, governance perceptions, identity, and ground realities. This time, the exit polls looked prescient, but the deeper signal lies in the scale of the shift that made such alignment almost unavoidable.
The frenzy will continue, the drama will endure, and psephologists will claim another round of validation. Wiser observers, however, will recognise it for what it truly is — not proof of polling mastery, but testimony to a political force that has reshaped the battlefield itself.
Views expressed are that of the author and do not reflect EastMojo’s stance on this or any other issue.
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