Fake Exit Polls Causing Confusion among People in AP

Visakhapatnam: With the 2024 general elections for the assembly and parliament concluding in Andhra Pradesh, mischief mongers are floating results attributing them to exit polls conducted by various organisations.

They are quoting major psephology organisations predicting victory for either the ruling YSRC party or NDA alliance led by TD in Andhra Pradesh.

It is a different matter as per orders of the Election Commission of India (ECI), results of exit polls cannot be declared till all the seven phases of elections are over, with the first phase having been held on April 19 and the last scheduled on June 1. This is to prevent one phase of the election from influencing results in other phases.

However, posts have been emerging on social media after the general elections concluded in Andhra Pradesh on May 13, sowing seeds of confusion far and wide.

It is said motivated people/organisations are taking the results of the 2019 AP elections, and distorting them as the verdict of the 2024 exit polls. They are using logos of prominent organisations to lend a semblance of credibility to their fake results.

In an instance, two different posts have emerged quoting a top new channel assigning victories in AP to both TD-led NDA and YSRC. The channel immediately debunked the posts, clarifying that no agency or news organisation is permitted to share exit poll figures until the election process concludes nationwide, as mandated by ECI’s Model Code of Conduct.

Another graphic suggested a win for TD. It turned out subsequently that it was a manipulated version of an exit poll originally published by a national English news channel in the 2021 Uttar Pradesh elections. The channel clarified that it has not released any 2024 AP exit poll data.

In particular, social media platforms, including X, have been flooded with false exit poll results. These are based on old data fabricated to suggest the current times. One of them has been traced to a post by @Manaanantapurtdp, accompanied by misleading hashtags.

However, fake exit polls are not confined to Andhra Pradesh alone. They are also emerging in Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, and Sikkim, where assembly elections are being held along with the parliamentary polls.