On Thursday soon after completion of the second phase of Gujarat elections, psephologists and polling companies started to publish their exit poll predictions for the state.
As reported, most of the exit polls predicted a clear majority for the BJP with the Times Now-VMR and Republic TV exit polls predicting 109 and 108 seats respectively out of a total 182 for the ruling party. The Congress was pegged to come a distant second with about 70-74 seats. The ABP-CSDS exit poll projected a 99-113 seat trend for the BJP.
Today’s Chanakya which had accurately predicted the 2014 lok sabha elections, went a step ahead and gave the BJP 135 seats. Even the NDTV brought good news for the BJP by projecting that it would bag about 112 seats.
Such projections though seemed become a major source of disappointment for certain Congress leaders and media trolls, who might have found BJP’s ‘prosperity’ unpalatable. But rather than constructively analysing the results, they decided to go in meltdown mode, as evident by their tweets.
Hardik Patel who has prominently emerged as the Patidar face of the Congress decided to point the finger at the EVMs and claimed that the nation should introspect over the matter of EVM malfunctioning:
EVM में गरबडी यह सवाल पर हँसी नहीं लेकिन हमें स्वतंत्र लोकतांत्रिक हिंदुस्तान में इस मुद्दे पर मंथन करना ज़रूरी हैं।जनता वोट देने के बाद भी चिंता करती है की क्या मेरा वोट सही रहेगा !!! यह सभी के लिए सोचने की बात हैं।
— Hardik Patel (@HardikPatel_) December 15, 2017
Congress supporter Tehseen Poonawalla, who is not related to Billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla, decided to take the blame the EVM route:
As a Political Analyst I can say safely the game is in the EVMs .
— Tehseen Poonawalla (@tehseenp) December 14, 2017
He didn’t stop at that and decided to even start attacking VVPATs:
VVPATs are the biggest scam bro.
Both @Saurabh_MLAgk & I wanted to take part in the hackathon. We still do . But the condition the EC puts on us is do not touch the motherboard & do not touch buttons.. they will press the buttons for us.
We are prepared to do this before all https://t.co/o57LwXeHoB— Tehseen Poonawalla (@tehseenp) December 15, 2017
Abusive troll and so-called journalist Swati Chaturvedi decided to bring into question Election Commission’s credibility:
Where I worry about the EC’s credibility, the damage Modi has done to the office of PM & predict safer than exit polls that 2019 will be ugly https://t.co/WssNEFYMi4
— Swati Chaturvedi (@bainjal) December 14, 2017
The founder of AAP propaganda blog Janta Ka Reporter decided to take things to the next level by floating a high level conspiracy theory:
Correction: Buzz in Lutyen Delhi: Exit polls were deliberately projected in favour of BJP so that some within the ruling party and corporate houses can make crores in stock market!
— Rifat Jawaid (@RifatJawaid) December 15, 2017
Congress leader Kapil Sibal decided to write some kind of a poem to launch a triple attack on the Election Commission, Media and the Judiciary:
Seems that this EC has no choice
Lost media’s independent voice
Court’s give no reason to rejoiceYet we must fight on !
— Kapil Sibal (@KapilSibal) December 15, 2017
Even journalist Rajdeep Sardesai became visibly agitated on air and almost decided to attack a BJP leader like some Congress spokesperson would:
After Exit Polls showed BJP winning Gujarat, Congress spokesperson loses his cool and indulges in sharp exchange of words with BJP spokesperson pic.twitter.com/00mLXpbbrK
— Ankur Singh (@iAnkurSingh) December 15, 2017
It remains to be seen whether we would witness a similar meltdown on 18th if these exit poll projections are proven right and BJP manages to form a government in Gujarat for the sixth consecutive time.
