Thaindian News

New Delhi, May 13 (IANS) Television channels got a reason to cheer Friday with their poll surveys getting it right on Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress ending the 34-year Left rule in West Bengal, though they were mostly off the mark on outcomes in Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry.

The post-poll surveys conducted during polling in the states over the past month by Headlines Today-ORG, CNN-IBN-The Week-CSDS and Star Ananda-Nielsen had given a two-thirds majority to the Trinamool Congress-Congress combine in the 294-seat West Bengal assembly.

The outcome of the polls to the state Friday were on similar lines, with the Trinamool Congress-Congress combine up-staging the Left parties by bagging 225 seats, and the Left getting 61.

Headlines Today-ORG gave the Trinamool Congress-led combine between 210 and 220 seats, and had pegged the Left Front’s strength in the assembly to just between 65 and 70 seats.

The CNN-IBN-The Week-CSDS assessed Trinamool Congress-led combine would get between 222 to 234 seats, with the Left Front getting 60 to 72 seats.

The Star Ananda-Nielsen poll gave Trinamool 225 and the Left 60 seats, with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) getting three seats and others six seats.

In Kerala, though, the CNN-IBN-The Week-CSDS was off the mark, as it had given the state to Left Democratic Front (LDF) by a slender margin, while Headlines Today-ORG polls had predicted a comfortable win for the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF).

The CNN-IBN-The Week-CSDS polls said LDF could win between 69 and 77 seats and the UDF between 63 and 71 seats out of the 140 seats in the Kerala assembly. The Headlines Today-ORG polls, on the other hand, said UDF would win between 85 and 92 seats against LDF’s tally of 48 to 55 seats.

The actual results reflected that the battle for the state was too close, with the UDF coming up trumps by a slender margin of 72 in the 140-member assembly.

Tamil Nadu, the two channels predicted, would again be a close call. Headlines-ORG said the DMK-led alliance would bag between 115 and 130 seats in the 234-seat assembly, while the opposition AIADMK-led alliance may get between 105 and 120 seats, which would mean the DMK will return to power.

But the CNN-IBN-The Week-CSDS poll said the AIADMK would bag between 120 and 132 seats to defeat the ruling DMK, which would poll between 102 and 114 seats.

But in a shock to the pollsters, AIADMK and its allies landed themselves a thumping two-thirds majority in the state assembly crossing the 200-seat mark.

The two exit polls had concurred on Assam throwing up a hung assembly with the Congress having a lead over the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and BJP.

But, the Congress returned to power in the state with a simple majority by bagging 72 seats. The AGP could manage only 10 seats and the BJP four.

The surprise in the north-eastern state was the emergence of All India United Democratic Front of perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal emerging as the largest opposition party with 20 seats and Bodoland People’s Front bagging 12 seats.