India¡¯s wildly inaccurate exit polls predicting a landslide election victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi¡¯s party sparked dramatic public apologies from polling companies this week and calls for them to be investigated for possible manipulation.
Almost all of the exit polls released on June 1 forecast Modi¡¯s Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies would win more than 350 seats in the lower house of the parliament. The final results released three days later put the coalition¡¯s tally at just 293 seats.
The exit polls pushed the benchmark equity index to a record on Monday, followed by a crash a day later when almost $400 billion of value was wiped off the market. Opposition parties called on the country¡¯s stock market regulator and the parliament to investigate the polling companies and BJP leaders for possible rigging.
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