ABP News pre-poll opinion survey from December 2023 shared as ‘exit poll’ for 2024 Indian elections

What's the claim?

As India awaits the result of its 18th Lok Sabha elections, scheduled to be announced on June 4 after the conclusion of seven-phase polls on June 1, a video allegedly showcasing exit poll results from ABP News, a leading Indian Hindi-language news channel, is doing the rounds on social media. The video suggests the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its alliance group, the National Democratic Alliance's (NDA), diminishing influence in South India and predicts a significant win for the rival Congress-led INDIA bloc in the region. 

Users on X (archived here and here) claimed that the 'exit poll' had predicted 80-90 seats for INDIA in South India and only 15-25 seats for the NDA, while the rest of the seats were "going to someone else." "South India BJP free... Big Exit Poll (sic)," they wrote. One such post was viewed over 19,000 times at the time of writing this story.

The clip has also gained widespread traction on Facebook. Bihar Pradesh Congress Sevadal, a political arm of the Indian National Congress in the eastern state of Bihar, also shared the clip on Facebook, claiming it to be the findings of an 'exit poll.'

Screenshot of claims made online. (Source: X/Facebook/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the video in question showcases the results of an ABP-CVoter opinion poll conducted before the commencement of the 2024 general elections, not an exit poll.

What did we find?

Upon conducting a reverse image search using different keyframes from the viral clip, we found a longer version of the video published by ABP News (archived here) on December 25, 2023, on their official YouTube channel. The video, based on data collected by pollster CVoter, provided an analysis of the expected results of 2024 Lok Sabha seats across various regions, along with projections for the overall nationwide seat distribution. The title of this video reads, "ABP News C Voter Loksabha Election 2024 Opinion Poll." The viral clip starts from the 3:08 timestamp. Here, predictions for seat shares for the INDIA bloc and the BJP-led NDA in the South Zone are shared. The South Zone comprises the states of Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu.

What did the pre-poll survey say?

ABP News also wrote a news report on this pre-election survey for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections published on their website on December 25, 2023. The survey projected the nationwide tally of seat shares and vote shares for different political parties and groups. In the South Zone, which has 132 Lok Sabha seats, the survey indicated that the INDIA bloc could secure a 40 percent vote share, with an estimated 70-80 seat win, while 'Others,' meaning strong regional parties not part of the INDIA bloc, would capture 41 percent of the vote share.  

The report also noted that, according to the country-wide survey results, the NDA is projected to cross the majority mark of 271 seats but faces challenges in the South Zone, where the Congress and the INDIA bloc are expected to secure a significant number of Lok Sabha seats.

This confirms that the video is of an opinion poll for the 2024 general elections from 2023 and not an exit poll. 

Opinion polls vs exit polls

It is to be noted that while opinion polls measure voter intentions before polling occurs, exit polls are conducted immediately after voters cast the ballot. The Economic Times notes that for opinion polls a sample of the electorate is surveyed about their planned voting preferences, and for exit polls voters are interviewed immediately after leaving polling stations on election day.

No exit poll findings released yet

Further, the Election Commission of India (archived here) has mandated that exit polls for the 2024 general elections cannot be released before 6:30 PM on June 1, following the conclusion of all seven phases of polling. 

Logically Facts has previously debunked similar misattributed survey results that were falsely shared as exit polls. These fact checks can be read here, here, here, and here.

The verdict

A video report on the pre-election opinion poll conducted by ABP News-CVoter in December 2023, ahead of the 2024 Indian general election, is being circulated as an exit poll suggesting that the INDIA bloc will gain a significant number of seats in South India. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.