It is official that the Election Commission of India has clearly banned exit polls and predictions till June 1, when the last phase of polling is completed across the country, three days before the announcement of election results.
So, no media house is officially declaring the results of the exit polls in any state, they have done the surveys in the four phases of elections held so far.
In Andhra Pradesh, too, the local and national media houses have done their own exit polls, but are not disclosing the same due to restrictions from the ECI.
Yet, certain fake surveys and exit polls in the name of popular national news channels and Telugu channels are doing rounds on social media, predicting the results of Andhra assembly elections.
Of course, media persons like V Ravi Prakash has come out with his own predictions on his digital channel RTV, much before the polling was held, giving a comfortable lead to the Telugu Desam Party-led National Democratic Alliance in AP.
One such report of exit polls, supposedly conducted by various national media houses, has been in circulation on social media.
The report quoted seven different exit polls conducted by popular agencies in association with popular national news channels.
According to the report, an exit poll conducted by India Today-Axis predicted that the NDA will get 142-157 assembly seats in AP, whereas the YSRCP will get 18-33 seats.
Another poll by CNN-News 18-IPSOS predicted 132-145 seats for NDA and 30-43 seats for YSRCP.
Times Now-VMR has given 128-133 seats to NDA and 42-47 seats for YSRCP; Republic-Jan Ki Baat has given 111-124 seats to NDA and 51-64 seats to YSRCP.
On the other hand, Republic-C Voter predicted 108-127 seats for NDA and 48-67 seats for YSRCP.
NewsX-Neta gave 139-152 seats to NDA and 23-36 for YSRCP. Lastly, Today’s Chanakya predicted that NDA will get 144-158 seats and YSRCP will end up with just 17-31 seats.
Needless to say, all these exit polls were fabricated as none of these channels has officially disclosed their exit poll results. And it is anybody’s guess who has fabricated these figures.
Apparently, such fabricated surveys and exit polls are being propagated to promote betting on the poll results.
Already hundreds of crores of rupees are changing hands in betting on the Andhra election results and such fabricated reports will definitely influence the betting.
Maybe, that is one tactic to make big money in betting!
