
The season’s feasting on election coverage is finally over. The Aam Aadmi Party won a historic mandate in Punjab and the Bharatiya Janata Party kept Manipur, Uttar Pradesh, Goa and Uttarakhand in its kitty. Pollsters, who spent a fortune on surveys, sampling and mathematical modelling, partnered with news channels and presented their projections.
In Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Manipur, the results matched the broad trends indicated by exit polls. But things were trickier in Goa and Uttarakhand, where cliffhanger contests forecasted by most pollsters did not materialise.