Axis My India chief Pradeep Gupta, whose prediction for the Lok Sabha elections went wrong in UP, said he made a mistake of not deploying his best resources in the most crucial state in the last three phases.
The Axis My India predicted 361-400 seats for the BJP-led NDA, including 67 seats in Uttar Pradesh. However, the results surprised many as the unthinkable happened in Uttar Pradesh, where the NDA recorded a loss of 29 seats and could win only 33 of 80 seats.
Gupta said it was not the Axis My India's method of predicting exit polls that went wrong but the deployment of resources in crucial states. "I made a mistake in the deployment of my senior resources and took crucial states like Uttar Pradesh lightly. It is said that the route to power in Delhi (Centre) is through UP. This is a lesson to never ignore any state when it comes to exit polls," he said in an interview with PTI.
The top pollster said that three states where Axis My India went wrong were Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Maharashtra. In UP, he suggested, the prediction went wrong for seats in the eastern region.
The Samajwadi Party, which won the highest 37 seats, swept the eastern region (Purvanchal), dealing a huge blow to the BJP.
Forty-one out of 80 seats in UP went to polls in the fifth, sixth, and seventh phases. "During the same time, Haryana and Delhi had elections in the same phase, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh in the seventh phase," Gupta said, adding that it also happened for the first time that Odisha and Jharkhand went to polls in the last three phases.
"Generally, elections used to be finished for other states in earlier phases, and the last phase used to be for West Bengal, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh. In Delhi also the political scenario was that Arvind Kejriwal had just come out of jail before the elections. The impact of the Aam Aadmi Party was also supposed to be in these three states only," Gupta said.
"In 2019, we had predicted everything correctly. We wanted to see Odisha with extra care this time so there is no lapse which did not happen," he said.
Gupta said that in the last four elections, the predictions for Uttar Pradesh were bang on, and "we did not depute our super duper resources in UP that too in the fifth, sixth and seventh phase and that is where I made the mistake...It was an error of judgment."
The ace pollster said that thirty-one resources were sent as observers, trainers, or coaches to different states, nobody was sent to Uttar Pradesh, and "this is where we made the mistake". He said Axis My India also sent some senior UP resources to Bengal but due to the political violence, the interview rate there was low and that made the difference.
"The 2024 elections are a learning for us to not take any state lightly, that too states like Uttar Pradesh," he said.