“High non-response rate” forces Axis My India to skip Bengal exit poll release, says Pradeep Gupta

Axis My India has decided not to release its exit poll projections for the West Bengal Assembly Election 2026, citing an unusually high rate of voter non-response that has raised concerns over data reliability. The announcement comes at a crucial time when most pollsters have already published their projections following the completion of voting across the state.

Founder Pradeep Gupta stated that nearly 70 percent of voters approached during the survey declined to respond, describing the situation as “atypical” and statistically significant. He explained that while some level of hesitation is expected in such exercises, the scale of refusal in West Bengal far exceeded normal patterns, thereby affecting the accuracy and credibility of the findings.

The organisation had deployed a structured field research operation across all 294 Assembly constituencies, with 80 trained surveyors working in 16 independent teams. Despite covering over 13,000 respondents and travelling extensively to gather data, the high non-response rate introduced a considerable degree of bias, making the dataset incomplete and unreliable for public release.

Following an internal review of the collected data, Axis My India concluded that publishing the exit poll under such conditions could lead to misleading interpretations. Gupta emphasized that methodological integrity was a key factor behind the decision, noting that the sampling process could not function effectively when a majority of respondents chose not to participate.

The development adds a new dimension to the post-poll narrative in West Bengal, where other exit polls have presented mixed projections, with some predicting a Bharatiya Janata Party victory and others indicating that the Trinamool Congress could retain power. With counting scheduled for May 4, the absence of one of the country’s prominent pollsters has intensified focus on the final results.