ECI Considering Re-polling in 77 Booths, Mamata Banerjee Rejects Exit Poll Predictions, Claims 226 Seats for TMC
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Apr 30: The West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday rejected the results of the exit polls most of which have predicted her defeat in the State Assembly elections, as the Election Commission said it was examining demands for re-polling in 77 booths across four Assembly constituencies in South 24 Parganas following complaints of some irregularities during the second and final phase of polling on Wednesday.
Official said the poll panel had received a total of 32 complaints from Falta, 29 from Diamond Harbour, 13 from Magrahat and three from Budge Budge. “The complaints, which surfaced soon after polling concluded on Wednesday, include allegations of EVM tampering, use of substances on machines, and attempts to obstruct surveillance cameras. In view of the volume and nature of complaints, the Commission is taking no chances,” a senior official said.
A serious allegation has also emerged from Magrahat Paschim in the Diamond Harbour area, where it was claimed that spy cameras were placed in voters’ shirt pockets to monitor their voting choices. “The instructions are clear. Assess everything at the ground level before taking a call,” official said.
Acting on these reports, the chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has directed Special Observer Subrata Gupta to conduct on-ground inspections before any decision is taken. “Gupta is currently visiting the affected booths and holding discussions with other observers. He has been asked to physically verify the situation at each of these locations and submit a detailed report,” official source said, noting that the move departs from the usual next-day scrutiny process.
The Election Commission will take a final call on re-polling after Gupta submits his findings. If deemed necessary, re-polling in the affected booths could be conducted as early as Friday, officials added.
Meanwhile, Ms Banerjee expressing confidence of returning to power with at least 226 seats in the 294-memer State Assembly, claimed that the exit poll reports were all “manufactured” in the BJP office.
Cautioning her party workers to strictly guard the strongrooms where the Electronic Voting Machines had been stored for the counting on Monday, Ms Banerjee said her party won’t allow “any khela during counting.” “Exit Polls are from the BJP’s office. The numbers are fabricated, meant to demoralise TMC workers,” Banerjee said in a video message, alleging that raids were conducted in her constituency, Bhabanipur, the “entire night.”
“BJP has played the final game. Share markets would have toppled if the real figures were released. People need to stay together, keep a close watch on counting… stay up all night,” she said, adding that she would guard the EVM strongrooms herself if need be.
“They plan to swap EVMs …. till the time I hold a press conference and declare, do not leave counting tables … they might change data in computers, giving our numbers to BJP and BJP’s to us, I myself will go to the counting hall, I can do that as a candidate. You have gone through so much. Please bear slightly more to save Bengal,” she said.
Many opposition leaders across states have recently called for guarding the EVM strongrooms, amid fears of irregularities. “We will return to power by winning more than 226 of 294 assembly seats in Bengal,” the chief minister added.
Her rejection of the exit poll results received further credence with Mr Pradeep Gupta, the founder of the Axis- My India, one of the comparatively more reliable organisation holding exit polls in all important elections, on Thursday announcing its decision to hold back its exit poll figures pointing out that the sample figures were too small to jump to any conclusion about the likely outcome of the two-phase elections.
Claiming that an “atmosphere of fear” was prevailing in the state, Mr Gupta said voters were choosing to stay mum about who they voted for. In a press release, Gupta said Axis My India deployed a structured field research exercise across all 294 Assembly constituencies in West Bengal. He added that a team of 80 trained surveyors, organised into 16 independent field units, conducted voter interviews using standardised exit poll methodologies, covering a sample of over 13,250 respondents.
“The fieldwork in West Bengal presented an atypical and statistically significant challenge. We observed an exceptionally high non-response rate, with approximately 70% of approached voters declining to participate in the survey. While some degree of respondent hesitancy is factored into our sampling models, a refusal rate of this magnitude materially exceeds historical norms and introduces a high degree of non-response bias,” the statement read.
“Our teams travelled over 8,324 kilometres to complete the fieldwork, and we had prepared to publish the findings of the Axis My India exit poll for West Bengal. However, after a detailed internal review of data quality, response distribution, and statistical confidence levels, we have taken a considered decision not to release the exit poll estimates for the state,” Gupta added.
Unlike the other exit poll organisers, the Axis- My India had on Wednesday deferred publishing its exit poll results till Thursday on the same ground that the sample size of response was too small to conclude a result. It had planned to make another effort on Thursday visiting some sample voters’ houses to elicit better response, but apparently has failed to draw out the voters to commit a statement.
Many of the experts have also similarly expressed lack of confidence in the exit poll results announced on Wednesday pointing out that if Axis-My India could not elicit enough response from the voters, it was unlikely that other organisations carrying out similar exit polls could receive large-scale response from the voters. They believed that most of them have published table stories based on a very small sample survey and may not go anywhere close to the real outcome.
