Axis My India skips Bengal exit poll: 70% voters refused to respond
Synopsis
Axis My India has done something rare in Indian psephology — refused to release an exit poll because too many voters simply wouldn't talk. With a 70% non-response rate in West Bengal, the agency says any projection would be unreliable. Eight other pollsters published estimates anyway, with wildly divergent outcomes.
Key Takeaways
Axis My India declined to release exit poll projections for West Bengal Assembly elections on 30 April .
Approximately 70 per cent of surveyed voters refused to participate — far above historical norms, according to Pradeep Gupta .
The agency deployed 80 surveyors and targeted over 13,000 respondents across the state.
Gupta cited non-response bias and silent voter behaviour as making any vote-share projection unreliable.
Of 8 other pollsters that released projections: 4 predicted the end of the Mamata government, 2 forecast a neck-and-neck BJP vs TMC race, and 2 gave TMC a comfortable majority for a fourth term.
Axis My India, one of India's most prominent polling agencies, has declined to release exit poll projections for the West Bengal Assembly elections, citing an unprecedented non-response rate of approximately 70 per cent among surveyed voters. The agency's decision, announced on Thursday, 30 April, sets it apart from at least eight other pollsters that have published seat and vote-share estimates for the state.
What Axis My India Found on the Ground
Pradeep Gupta, Director and Managing Director of Axis My India, said his team deployed 80 surveyors across West Bengal to gather responses from over 13,000 respondents. Despite the scale of the operation — and Gupta himself venturing into the field to validate survey processes — roughly 70 per cent of voters declined to participate or share their electoral inclinations.
Gupta described the refusal rate as leaving him with
Point of View
A pattern with deep implications for democratic accountability. The divergence among the eight pollsters who did publish — ranging from a TMC wipeout to a comfortable Mamata majority — suggests that the ground truth is genuinely opaque, not just to Axis My India but to the entire polling ecosystem. In that context, the agency's restraint deserves more scrutiny than the projections it chose not to make.
NationPress
1 May 2026
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did Axis My India not release an exit poll for West Bengal?
Axis My India declined to release exit poll projections because approximately 70 per cent of surveyed voters refused to participate or disclose their voting preference, a non-response rate that Director Pradeep Gupta said introduced too high a degree of bias to produce reliable estimates.
Who is Pradeep Gupta and what did he say about the Bengal survey?
Pradeep Gupta is the Director and Managing Director of Axis My India, a leading Indian polling agency. He stated that the unprecedented voter silence left him with 'very little choice' but to withhold projections, noting that the refusal rate 'exceeds historical norms and introduces a high degree of non-response bias.'
How many surveyors and respondents were involved in the Axis My India Bengal survey?
Axis My India deployed 80 surveyors across West Bengal targeting over 13,000 respondents. Despite this scale, the agency was unable to gather sufficient reliable data due to widespread voter reluctance.
What did other exit polls predict for the West Bengal elections?
Eight other pollsters released projections: four predicted the end of the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government, two forecast a near-equal contest between BJP and TMC, and two projected a comfortable TMC majority that would give the party a record fourth term in power.
What is non-response bias and why does it matter in exit polls?
Non-response bias occurs when a significant portion of the target population refuses to participate in a survey, causing the remaining responses to potentially misrepresent the broader electorate. Axis My India cited this as the primary reason its West Bengal data could not support credible vote-share projections.
