Following the completion of the voting in the second phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections on Wednesday, the exit polls for the five states, in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, and Tamil Nadu, are out.
What the exit polls said
In 2026, most pollsters are of the opinion that the BJP will retain power in Assam and Puducherry. In Tamil Nadu, except one, all posters have projected the ruling DMK to emerge victorious once again. The notable exemption in Axis My India, which has projected debutants Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) led by actor Vijay to be the single-largest party. In Kerala, there was consensus among all major pollsters that the Congress-led UDF will return to power despite a strong show by the incumbent CPIM-led LDF.
In West Bengal, three pollsters have projected the BJP to win, while three others are giving a clear edge to TMC. Notably, Today's Chanakya and Axis My India haven’t released their exit poll figures for West Bengal.
As major political parties continue to make claims and counterclaims about the exit poll results and how reliable they are, here is a quick look back at what the pollsters predicted about the five states in 2021 and how close they were to the election results.
Assam
Just like in 2026, most pollsters projected the BJP-led NDA to win the assembly elections in 2021. And they were spot on, with Axis My India even getting the number of seats correct (75).
Kerala
In Kerala, most pollsters were of the view that the LDF would retain power in 2021, though their seat projections were widely different. Axis My India predicted LDF winning 104-120 seats, while UDF would get 20-36, and C-Voter projected LDF 71-77 and UDF 62-68. LDF ended up winning 99 out of the 140 seats in 2021.
Puducherry
In Puducherry, both Axis My India and C-Voter projected the BJP-led NDA to be clear winners. But when the results came, it threw up a hung assembly and the NDA ended up forming the government with 16 seats.
Tamil Nadu
In 2021, all the exit polls predicted a clear win for the DMK. But most of them overestimated the DMK’s seat share, with Axis My India and Today’s Chanakya projecting a maximum of 195 and 186, respectively. The DMK ended up winning 159 seats in 2021.
West Bengal
In 2021, most agencies predicted a close contest between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP. C-Voter projected TMC to a maximum of 164 seats, while Jan Ki Baat projected BJP to win as many as 185 seats. In the end, the TMC retained power in West Bengal with a huge margin, winning 215 seats in the 294-seat assembly.
