Here’s how exit polls fared in 2017 polls in UP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa & Manipur

The CNN-IBN exit poll results predicted that BJP would secure a clear lead in Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections 2017 with 185 seats, but fall short of majority needed to form the government in the state. According to the poll, the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance would secure 120 seats, while the Bahujan Samaj Party would get around 90 seats.

Here are what other news agencies had predicted back in 2017:

India Today | SP+Congress (120), BJP (185), BSP (90), Others (9)

Times Now | SP-Congress (110-130), BJP (190-210), BSP (57-74), Others (8)

ABP | SP-Congress (156-169), BJP (164-176), BSP (60-72), Others (2-6)

India News | SP-Congress (120), BJP (185), BSP (90), Others (8)

India TV | SP-Congress (135-147), BJP (155-167), BSP (81-93), Others (8-20)

Results: The BJP won over 300 seats, while SP and BSP, which had dominated Uttar Pradesh politics for over two decades, were battered like never before. The BSP won only 19 seats, down from 80 in 2012, its lowest tally since 1991, when the party won 12 seats. The SP won 47, its lowest tally since the party’s inception in 1992.

Punjab

In 2017, the India Today-Axis exit polls had suggested the Congress would secure a comfortable majority of 62-71 seats in the state.

C-Voter exit polls had placed AAP as the front-runner in the election and has given it a share of 59-67 seats which means majority in Assembly. It gave 41-49 seats to Congress. Today’s Chanakya exit poll had predicted a tie between AAP and Congress.

Results: The Amarinder Singh-led Congress party secured a clear majority with 77 seats. AAP won 20 seats, while SAD got 15 seats and BJP won three seats.

Uttarakhand

Most exit polls had predicted that the BJP would win big in Uttarakhand in 2017. The exit poll survey carried out by the India Today group, in association with Axis, claimed the BJP would win between 46-53 seats and the Congress between 12 and 21. News24-Chanakya, meanwhile, predicted the BJP to win at least 53 seats and the Congress just 15 seats. The MRC predicted 38 seats for Congress, 30 for BJP and 3 for other candidates.

Results: The BJP won with an overwhelming majority, bagging 57 out of the 70 seats. The Congress tally was reduced to just 11 seats, while SP and BSP failed to win a single seat.

Manipur

The C-Voter exit poll gave 25-31 seats to BJP in the 60-seat Assembly. It predicted that the Congress would win 17-23 seats while other parties and independents would get 9-15 seats. The India Today-Axis had predicted a Congress win with a 42% vote share. The exit poll gave 30-36 seats to Congress and 16-22 seats to the BJP.

Results: In 2017, Congress emerged as the single largest party in the Manipur polls, winning 28 seats in the 60-member Assembly, but it failed to form a government. BJP, which won 21 seats, came to power by stitching together an alliance with Conrad Sangma’s National People’s Party and Nagaland’s Naga People’s Front, that had won four seats each.

With the poll results leading to a hung House, the scales in the battle for supremacy were delicately balanced. The final ending was not without controversy—though Congress had emerged as the single largest party, Governor Najma Heptulla called the BJP-led alliance to form the government.

The results also marked the end of the Okram Ibobi Singh-led Congress government. Though Singh, who had been the CM for 15 years, lost the larger battle, he won from the Thoubal seat. Rights activist Irom Sharmila, who had contested against Singh, secured only 90 votes. BJP’s N Biren Singh, who was a former minister in the Congress government, went on to take oath as the CM.

Goa

The India Today C-Voter exit poll results predicted a win for the BJP in the elections. It said that the BJP could win 18-22 seats, Congress 9-13 seats and AAP 0-2 seats. The India TV exit polls predicted that BJP could win 15 seats, followed by Congress (10 seats) and AAP (7 seats).

Results: The results of the Goa Assembly polls in 2017 in a way mirrored a familiar pattern that had emerged on two occasions—in 2002 and 2007—when elections threw up a fractured mandate and regional parties played kingmakers.

In 2017, Congress emerged as the single largest party, winning 17 seats in the 40-member House. But it failed to form a government as it fell four seats short of the majority mark. Instead, it was BJP, which came second best with 13 seats, which cobbled up a ruling coalition with regional parties like Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (3 seats), Goa Forward Party (3 seats) and two independents.

The Aam Aadmi Party failed to win a single seat.

Most of the Congress heavyweights won and it also wrestled back six seats from BJP. But since then, the grand old party has suffered crushing blows in the state on the back of a steady stream of defections. In 2019, 10 Congress MLAs jumped ship to the saffron camp and the BJP, which had a comfortable majority, ousted its alliance partners.