Placing hard reality of exit polls before opposition, Arun Jaitley says, voters do not trust ‘Coalition of Rivals’

New Delhi, May 20: With India voting at the last phase and deciding the future of the country, the biggest festival of democracy came to an end. And with the last phase came the predictions of the exit poll which clearly depicted that history seems repeating itself with people roaring ‘Aayega Toh Modi Hi’. As the opposition calling the exit poll a ‘bluff’, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has a befitting reply to those who squabble over correctness and accuracy of the Exit Polls.

 

In a Facebook post, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday criticised the Opposition for questioning the accuracy of exit polls. “The hard reality is that when multiple exit polls convey the same message, the direction of the result broadly would be in consonance with the message.”

 

Arun Jaitley said “If the results of the exit polls and final results on the 23rd May, 2019 are in the same direction, the Opposition’s fake issue of the EVMs [electronic voting machines] would also lose its non-existent rationale.” He further added that the exit polls are based on personal interviews and EVMs play no role in it. This was in reference to West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s claim that the exit polls were a means to manipulate or replace thousands of EVMs. Arun Jaitley has claimed a “huge maturing of the India democracy” if the exit polls are read with the results of the 2014 elections. Jaitley said the maturing of democracy was visible from the “messages” that the voter is sending. “Dynastic parties, caste parties and the Obstructionists Left received a setback in 2014. This will be reiterated, loud and clear, in 2019.”

Giving an overview of voter’s perspective, Jaitley said that the voters do not trust the “Coalition of Rivals” and will not even elect a hung parliament nor do they believe in fake issues. The Union minister criticised the Congress, saying the “first family” or the Gandhi family were not an asset to the party, but an “albatross around neck of the party”. “Without the family, they don’t get the crowd, with it they don’t get the votes,” he said.

Jaitley said the “New India” will accept parties with talent and ideological clarity. He warned that if other parties are unwilling to read the message of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and “possibly 2019”, they will be alienated from the electorate.