Stunned by projections, many to stay away from counting halls in Punjab

Ravi Dhaliwal

Gurdaspur, March 8

Shock and awe ran through the rank and file of candidates belonging to the rival parties of AAP following the trends shown by exit polls, with many of them, fearing humiliation, deciding to stay away from the counting hall on March 10.

Candidates of almost all political parties gathered in front of their TV sets last evening in anticipation of the poll projections. Half an hour into the proceedings, when the grain was separated from the chaff, those belonging to the Congress, SAD-BSP and the BJP alliance were left dumbstruck. Optimism had been replaced with a high sense of pessimism, all within minutes.

A sitting MLA had a hard time controlling himself. He got better only when a late night poll revealed his party would end up with more than 50 seats. This was a far cry from the figure of 10 seats given earlier, but was enough to revive his spirits, if not political fortunes. Nevertheless, despite this acting as a morale booster, he made it clear he would not go to the counting hall.

Barring AAP candidates who kept claiming the authenticity of the exit polls was not to be doubted, scepticism prevailed among leaders of other parties, almost all of whom rubbished the results. Congress candidates gave much-needed succour to each other. They also started stitching up post-poll alliances “just in case the results went awry for the AAP.”

“How is it possible that a party which had 80 legislators in the Assembly will end up with just a dozen this time? Last time too exit polls had been proven wrong when they projected the AAP to form the government with a majority. In reality, it got just 20 seats. There are many factors that have a bearing on the outcome,” said a legislator.

Verka questions survey sample

Chandigarh: Claiming that the exit polls surveys were table reports far away from the ground realty, Cabinet Minister Dr Raj Kumar Verka on Tuesday said the Congress will win 60 seats. He said their calculations were based on the ground survey. TNS