Exit polls rejected as ‘Modi media’ fantasy

NEW DELHI: A day after all major exit polls gave a clear majority to the BJP-led NDA for a third term, opposition leaders rejected the predictions outright. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi called it a “Modi media poll”.

“This is Modi ji’s poll, a fantasy poll,” Gandhi said on Sunday, adding that the opposition bloc will get 295 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee, whose party, the Trinamool Congress, is shown as getting fewer seats than the BJP in West Bengal, alleged that “the exit polls were prepared by the BJP two months ago”.

“These exit polls have been prepared by the BJP and then given to the media. I am clearly telling you that they have no value. They are fake,” Ms Banerjee told a channel. Her party shared the statement on its official X handle.

She, however, neither endorsed the 295-figure provided by INDIA bloc leaders nor did she give a number for her party in West Bengal. But in an unusual pushback to the exit polls, the Congress invited the media to an online interaction that the party’s communication chief, Jairam Ramesh, had with Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chiefs.

The PCC presidents shared their assessments of the polls in their respective states. Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar said his party would win at least two-thirds of the 28 seats; Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Partap Singh Bajwa said all the surveys have given 7-9 seats to the Congress; and Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said the Congress has an edge in two parliamentary seats and is in a tight contest for the two other seats.

Assam Congress chief Bhupen Borah claimed that his party would win at least half of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole, Haryana state unit chief Udai Bhan, Rajasthan Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra and Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajai Rai also exuded confidence in performing much better than exit poll projections. Ramesh claimed the PM and Home Minister were playing mind games, but the INDIA bloc would win. “These are bogus polls, and psychological games are being played. Pressure is being applied by the outgoing PM and HM on the opposition parties, the Election Commission, and counting agents to create an atmosphere that they are coming back. The reality is the exact opposite,” he said.

Meanwhile, a top opponent of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed Sunday to keep fighting “dictatorship” before he returned to jail Sunday, following elections widely expected to produce another landslide victory for the Hindu-nationalist leader.

Arvind Kejriwal is among several opposition leaders under criminal investigation, with colleagues describing his arrest the month before the general election began in April as a “political conspiracy” orchestrated by Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The chief minister of the capital Delhi and a key leader in an alliance formed to compete against Modi, Kejriwal was detained in March over a long-running corruption probe. He was later released and allowed to campaign but ordered to return to jail once voting ended.

“When power becomes dictatorship, then jail becomes a responsibility,” said Kejriwal, who promised to continue “fighting” from behind bars. “I don’t know when I will return,” he told supporters in an emotional departure speech at his Aam Aadmi party headquarters. “I don’t know what they will do to me... every drop of my blood is for the country.”

Kejriwal later returned to jail, his party spokesman told AFP.

Modi’s political opponents and international rights groups have long sounded the alarm about threats to India’s democracy. US think tank Freedom House said this year the BJP had “increasingly used government institutions to target political opponents”.

Rahul Gandhi, the most prominent member of the opposition Congress party and scion of a dynasty that dominated Indian politics for decades, was convicted of criminal libel last year after a complaint by a member of Modi’s party. Hemant Soren, the former chief minister of the eastern state of Jharkhand, was also arrested in February in a separate corruption probe.