As the Tamil Nadu poll results are coming to a close, the leads have made it evident that the AIADMK is heading for a victory.
The Tamil Nadu exit polls that were released on May 16 came as a surprise to many, as four out of five exit polls predicted that the AIADMK will lag behind the DMK.
While three of them predicted a win for the DMK, one showed a close contest ending in a hung assembly and only one exit poll showed a comfortable win for the AIADMK.
The AxisMyIndia exit poll by India Today and CNN-News18 predicted that the AIADMK would get 89-101 seats, while DMK and its allies including Congress will win 124-140 seats.
ABP News exit polls predicted a DMK victory, with 132 seats for DMK and allies and 95 for AIADMK while the NewsX-Chanakya exit poll showed that the DMK coalition would win 140 seats, and AIADMK would win 90.
News Nation exit polls showed a close contest with a possible hung assembly, with AIADMK winning 95-99 seats, DMK winning between 114 and 118 seats and PWF winning 12 to 16.
C-Voter Times Now exit poll, the only one showing an AIADMK win, predicted AIADMK grabbing 139 seats, while DMK and its allies were expected to win 78 seats with the others grabbing 17 seats.
However, many senior journalists like India Today’s Rajdeep Sardesai and CNN-News 18’s Bhupendra Chaubey had expressed scepticism about the validity of the polls and their predictions.
Earlier, opinion polls did nothing but add to the confusion as each new survey came with a whole new set of margins on vote shares and seats won. No survey seemed to agree or align with the numbers of any other.
Tamil channel News7, in association with the daily Dinamalar, predicted that DMK would win, so did another survey by a firm run by Father Gasper Raj, a close acquaintance of Kanimozhi.
Cauvery News and another poll by the People Studies of Loyola also predicted a DMK win.
However, Times Now C-survey and Tamil channel Puthaiya Thalaimurai predicted an AIADMK win.
Many had a problem with the TV channels not disclosing the methodology of the survey and taking small sample sizes.