Doubled deployment in Maharashtra, Jharkhand to eliminate exit poll errors: Pradeep Gupta

New Delhi: Learning lessons from this year's Lok Sabha and Haryana Assembly polls, Axis My India has doubled its on-ground deployment in Maharashtra and Jharkhand to eliminate any error in its exit poll surveys, agency chief Pradeep Gupta has said.

He said he was the only one who predicted the US poll results correctly but ruled out any expansion to other countries as of now. He, however, said he received queries from Ethiopia, Kenya and the United Kingdom this year.

Gupta was considered the poster boy of exit polls till June 4, when the Lok Sabha election results dealt a hammer blow to his reputation after the predictions by the Axis My India proved to be wide off the mark. It took a further hit when Axis My India got the Haryana Assembly poll predictions wrong as well.

Gupta said each poll is a lesson. He said he has conducted an in-depth analysis of their work to identify and rectify their mistakes.

"Yes, there were mistakes and we have identified them. Quality control, monitoring and judgement call, are the areas that we are strengthening. We have doubled the on-ground deployment in Maharashtra and Jharkhand so there is no scope of any error in judgement," he told PTI in an interview.

Elections for the 81-member Jharkhand assembly will be held in two phases on November 13 and 20, while Maharashtra will vote in single phase on November 20. The votes will be counted in both states on November 23.

"We are working on the identified areas and we know we cannot afford to go wrong in upcoming elections," the Axis My India Chief said.

Talking about his debut at predicting US polls, Gupta said, "We conducted over 10,000 interviews in the US. We took on board university interns and housewives to conduct the interviews and the kind of quality inputs we got plus our presence across the country, gave us an edge and we were the only ones to get it bang on".

Gupta is a Harvard Business School alumnus, and he said his contacts from his time there came handy when he wanted to set up "Axis My America".

"Having presence on the ground helps to get the pulse of the political current in the place. While we place a lot of emphasis on the ground interviews, I have connects to help us analyse if we are getting the crux of it right. As far as methodology is concerned, it was the same as we do in India," he said.

Asked about his expansion plans in other countries, Gupta said, "As of now there is no plan. The US was different. I studied here so I had some base and I expanded on it. I received queries from Ethiopia, Kenya and the UK this year but at the moment there are no plans to expand in these countries."

Gupta, who faced stinging criticism and allegation of stock market manipulation with incorrect predictions for Lok Sabha polls, said that even in those elections they did not get the methodology but the but the deployment of resources in crucial states.

Also read: ‘Pradeep Gupta retire’: Exit polls face existential crisis after Haryana poll results

"In Lok Sabha polls, we made the mistake of taking some crucial states like UP lightly while in Haryana polls it was an error of judgement," he said.