'I got it wrong, ready to eat the humble pie': Prashant Kishor's first reaction after his poll forecast goes wrong

Speaking in an interview with India Today, Kishor said, "Yes, I and pollsters like me got it wrong. We are ready to eat the humble pie."

Considering getting into the numbers game as a mistake in his party, Kishor added, ".. I would not get into the number of seats in elections any more".

"As a strategist, I should not have gotten into numbers. I never used to. It is just in the last two years that I have made the mistake of getting into the numbers - once during the Bengal Assembly election and now in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

"Notably, if you remove the numbers, everything that I said was right," he added. 

"I had put my assessment in front of you and I have to admit on camera that the assessment that I did was wrong in terms of numbers by a big 20 per cent. We were saying BJP would get somewhere close to 300 and they got 240. But I had earlier said that there was a little anger, but no widespread discontent against Narendra Modi," he said.

Just ahead of the last few phases of elections, Kishor had claimed Narendra Modi will return to power with his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) winning around 303 seats, the figure which the saffron camp had got in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Quite contrary to what was predicted, Modi's BJP, which was in a hunt for 400 seats, stopped at 240, 32 short of the majority mark.

Kishor had even predicted the BJP would suffer no "material damage" in North and West India and would emerge as the single largest party in West Bengal.

Proving him wrong, the Samajwadi Party (37 seats) and Congress (6 seats) stopped BJP's juggernaut in Uttar Pradesh while the ruling coalition has suffered a drubbing in Maharashtra.

In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee Trinamool Congress swept the polls walking away with 29 seats while the BJP fell down from the 2019 tally of 18 seats to 12.

Unlike his previous two terms, Modi this time requires the support of his allies to form a government.

The TDP (16 seats), JDU (12 seats), Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena (7 seats) and Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas (5 seats) have emerged as the kingmakers.