Indian Lok Sabha election results have stunned the world, making all exit polls a far cry from the predictions the media outlets made. With the opposition making overtures to two regional parties, the fate of the ruling coalition evidently hangs in the balance. The question that haunts us is what has made the exit polls gone so very wrong.

India’s Lok Sabha polls, the world’s largest election, were held in seven phases over six weeks. Around a billion voters were registered to vote, and it has understandably grabbed the attention of the world’s media for an array of reasons.

In the middle of his election rallies, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi became increasingly bitter, belligerent, and desperate even.

In April, in a speech given in Rajasthan, the PM said, “…if Congress forms government, everybody’s property will be probed, their jewellery, gold and silver will be distributed equally among the people.”

In the same breath he said that the opposition would take the (Hindu) voters’ money and give it to those who had more children. “To the illegal immigrants… They will distribute them to Muslims …” he added.

The tone and mood of the diatribe, however, doesn’t escape us. This is the voice of a desperate, drowning man trying to cling onto the last straw that he possesses— identity politics aka Hindutva.  

But when a person has to choose between otherisation of Muslims and their empty stomach, they’ll, at the end of the day, will choose the latter.

Today’s India is more unequal than it was under British colonial rule. The country is plagued with economic problems that are endemic in fast-growing devolving countries— corruption, economic stagnation, unemployment, poor livelihood and inadequate public services.

These are real issues— ordinary mortals have to solve these problems, invoking God’s name alone doesn’t suffice.

While Narendra Modi has ratcheted up his diatribes, his pet media outlets, known as the Godi Media, produced one ballad after the other for him in news reports and opinion pieces. The last in this line has come in the form of opinion polls.

It is evident that even before the last ballot was cast, Modi, deep down in his heart, might’ve known that his party would be humbled before the world and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would lose its single majority in the parliament.

But that didn’t stop major Indian media outlets to predict a clean sweep for the beleaguered BJP.  India Today, a rather respected outlet, in its India Today-Axis My India exit poll, predicted a mammoth 361-401 seats for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), while in reality, the NDA is slated to win a meagre 292.

In India, a party or alliance needs 272 seats to form the government.

News24-Today's Chanakya went a little overboard. It has awarded Narendra Modi’s alliance a whooping 385-415 seats, while doling out a meagre 96-118 seats to the opposition Congress-led I.N.D.I.A.

The India TV-CNX Exit Poll predicts a sweeping victory for the BJP-led NDA in Parliament by winning within a range of 371 to 401 seats.

Exit polls always run the risk of going terribly wrong. There are instances even in Western democracies where respected medias have been forced to swallow their words.

But one should make the Indian media an exception here. According to a Right to Information reply, on an average, in 2019, Modi government had spent Rs 1.95 crore a day on print, electronic and outdoor advertisements. The organisation, however, did not provide information on the amount spent by the government on advertisements in foreign media.

Use of access to power and business favours are alleged to work as inducement. Bad news is occasionally suppressed, so much so that during the Covid Crisis, international magazine Time in a title said, “It Isn’t Just Modi. India’s Compliant Media Must Also Take Responsibility for the COVID-19 Crisis.”

The report went on to say that many Hindi- and English-language news channels, as well as regional news outlets, are unabashedly pro-Modi. They have routinely exaggerated the government’s successes and either glossed over its failures or spun ways to pin them on Modi’s discontents: the opposition, liberals, Muslims, activists, leftists, protesters, NGOs, and other assorted “anti-nationals.”

Today a large section of India’s media outlets has been forced to eat humble pie when their opinion polls have turned out to be wrong by a huge margin. Judging by the way these newspapers and television channels have functioned over the years, it can safely be assumed that it’s not an honest mistake they’ve made, but it’s an attempt, however desperate and foolish, to please their master. 

A section of Indian newspapers and television channels coverage of the election is not befitting of the media of the world’s largest democracy. The world of journalism expects better off them.

If history be our judge, journalism of this kind doesn’t thrive in the long run. It never did, it never does and neither it will.

(AM Hussain is a Bangladeshi-born writer and journalist.)