What exit polls foretell

The exit polls for Jammu and Kashmir have been along the expected lines: The NC-Congress alliance is predicted to win a majority with the BJP seen as emerging as the second largest party by securing a majority of seats from Jammu division. One hardly needed exit polls to foretell this outcome. The result may very well prove the prediction right, but not necessarily so, as the recent parliamentary elections demonstrated. All exit polls then were way off the mark. It turned out that the ruling BJP which was predicted to secure over 400 seats or thereabouts, fell way short of the absolute majority - winning just 240 of the 272 seats required to form the government.

Since then, the exit polls as an analytical tool to gauge poll outcome have by and large lost credibility. Former J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah rubbed it in on Saturday when he questioned the need for the exit polls given their failure to accurately call the parliamentary polls.

Kashmir elections may be more difficult to predict, considering the situation in the union territory has become politically more complex in the wake of the withdrawal of Article 370 in October 2019 and the downgrading of the state into two union territories - J&K and Ladakh.

The analysis of the polls derives, in part, from the opinion of a certain sample size of voters. But in view of the prevailing circumstances, the voters in Kashmir are believed to hide more than they let on. So, there is a chance that the exit poll calculations could go awry - albeit, not markedly so.

It is true that the NC and the BJP started with an initial advantage in the ongoing elections. But while the NC ran into a tough competition going forward, the BJP got the better of the Congress, its only competition in the Jammu region. Now, whether this apparent trend plays out in the actual result on October 8, remains to be seen. It may very well do.

It would be also interesting to see how many seats smaller parties such as the People’s Conference, Awami Ittehad Party and the Apni Party get. Or for that matter, the independents, some of whom are sponsored by Jamaat-i-Islami. That said, people in the union territory would want an elected government that is stable and representative of all sections of the society. J&K deserves one after a decade-long central rule.