Exit pollsters deserve Nobel prize: Cong

Exit pollsters "deserve the Nobel prize for miniaturisation", Congress said on Tuesday taking a dig at pollsters who have projected a poor show by the party in Lok Sabha polls.

"Those who try and capture the essence of Indian polity in exit or opinion polls on sample sizes of varying sizes deserve the Nobel prize for miniaturization for a country as diverse as India", party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi told reporters.

He said he was talking of such a prize because these pollsters "are capturing the hearts and minds of over a billion people or X billion voters on sample sizes of 10-20-or 50 or 90,000 or one lakh. Besides, this is being done on the "most diverse spots on earth that is India."

Coming down heavily on such polls, he said those who failed to learn lessons of history are condemned to repeat them and the same applied to these pollsters and exit pollsters.

He said how exit polls have proved wrong in 2004 and 2009 general elections.

At the outset, he said Congress was proud of and happy to have run a great campaign which was within the boundaries of decency -- decency of discourse.

In an obvious dig at BJP and Narendra Modi for running a 'divisive' campaign, Singhvi said "we have fought fiercely and firmly but always fairly. We have never consciously or sub consciously hit below the belt and we believe that we have done a vigorous strong, sober campaign".

He replied in the negative when asked whether there was any name other than Rahul Gandhi for prime ministership if the Congress was confident of forming the next government.