After the successful completion of the Phase-1 of Lok Sabha General Elections 2019, few posts related to exit polls are doing rounds on social media. One such exit poll alleged to be that of Times Now, has been in circulation on Facebook since the past few days. Let us try to analyze the authenticity of this exit poll.
Claim: Times Now has released its Exit Poll survey of Phase-1 of 2019 General Elections.
Fact: The original infographic of the one put in the post can be seen in ‘The Indian Express’ article regarding ‘Gujarat exit polls 2017’. Hence, the claim is FALSE.
When the image in the post is searched using the Google Reverse Image search technique, then we can obtain a link of a ‘The Indian Express’ article published on December 14, 2017. The article titled ‘Gujarat exit polls 2017’ has the exit poll survey results conducted by various news channels for Gujarat Assembly Elections. In it, the infographic of Times Now can also be seen. With the numbers changed, it is now being circulated as the Exit Poll survey of Phase-1 of 2019 General Elections in India.
And moreover, The Election Commission of India in its press note released on 8th April 2019, notified that no exit polls should be published between 7.00 A.M. on 11.04.2019 (Thursday) and 6.30 P.M. on 19.05.2019 (Sunday).
Hence, it is clear that Times Now hasn’t published any Exit Poll results after the first phase of Lok Sabha elections and the infographic doing rounds is a photoshopped one.
