NEW DELHI, May 20 (TIWN): CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury has said, he does not take exit polls seriously.

“We don’t believe in exit polls; they have nowhere come out to be accurate. Even in exit polls in advanced countries, like we saw in Australia yesterday, the actual result was completely opposite to what they had predicted”, said Sitram Yechury.

“I don’t take exit polls seriously. I also would like to remind this generation about an RK Laxman cartoon. It depicted after the first exit poll of India - husband tells wife that he has stamped the wrong ballot. When his wife is about to scold him, he says, ‘don’t worry I have corrected myself in the exit poll.’ This is the Indian reality”, he said.

“Between 2004 and 2014, the Left’s numbers came down to a historic low. This year, our sole target was to increase our numbers. Let’s see how we have fared on May 23. But in West Bengal particularly, in at least six constituencies, there was large-scale violence, large-scale rigging and our voters were prevented from casting their votes. And the crucial thing that I had been saying is that if our vote is allowed to be polled, it would make a big difference. But they were not allowed to be polled by the BJP in Tripura and the Trinamool in West Bengal”, said Yechury.