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Pollsters off the mark as AAP rolls to landslide win in Delhi elections

February 10, 2015 16:34 IST

Supporters of Aam Aadmi Party hold portraits of AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, during the celebrations outside their party office in New Delhi. Photograph: Anindito Mukherjee/ Reuters

With the Aam Aadmi Party set to bag up to 67 seats in the 70-member Delhi assembly, the pollsters were yet again off the mark as none of them predicted such a “tsunami” verdict for the Arvind Kejriwal-led party.

Till 4 pm, the AAP had won 60 of the 63 seats for which the results were available with Election Commission and was leading on 7 seats.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, which was hoping to ride on Narendra Modi's “magic” before the elections, could only manage to secure three seats.

Congress, which drew a blank in Delhi in the last Lok Sabha polls, met a similar fate this time as it failed to open its account in the Assembly polls.

All exit polls, which were conducted during the voting day on February 7, had given AAP a clear majority, but only one had tipped their tally to cross 50 seats.

The highest number of 53 seats for AAP was predicted by India News-Axis poll, which gave BJP 17 and Congress up to two seats.

News 24-Today's Chanakya exit polls had predicted a majority for AAP, giving it 48 seats and 22 to BJP. It, however, did not give a single seat to Congress.

The India Today-Cicero exit poll on Headlines Today channel had projected up to 43 seats for AAP and had given BJP up to 29 seats. Congress was tipped to get up to five seats by the survey.

The ABP-Nielsen poll had said that AAP will get 39 seats while BJP would win 28 and Congress come third with three. Similarly, Zee TV-C Voter poll projected 31 to 39 seats for AAP and 27 to 35 seats for BJP. Congress had been given 2 to 4 seats in the poll.

India TV's exit poll had put AAP at the top with 31 to 39 seats and had predicted 27 to 35 seats for BJP while giving 2 to 4 seats to Congress.

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