"Exit polls are laughable...": Congress leader Shashi Tharoor

Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) [India], June 3 : After the exit polls predicted a third straight win for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Lok Sabha elections, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said that the exit polls are laughable, asserting that INDIA bloc will get 295 seats .
"We are seeing it with skepticism and disbelief because we have also been campaigning throughout the country. We also have a sense of what the pulse of the people is and we don't believe it is reflected accurately in these polls. Our Congress president, after meeting all the INDIA bloc members, has said that he is convinced that we are getting about 295 for the alliance. I stick to that number," Tharoor told reporters on Monday.
"If any exit poll can say that the BJP will win up to 7 seats in Kerala - either they are suffering from heatstroke or they don't understand Kerala. Some of these exit polls are also laughable for other reasons. I don't think we should take them seriously," he added.
The Congress MP said that the Congress looked all over the place and no wave of the BJP was visible.
"I am perfectly aware that Thiruvananthapuram is the BJP's strongest constituency in Kerala, that on two occasions they have come second and therefore they are entirely capable of coming second again. But the possibility that they can actually win is, at the moment, a remote one because there has to be some basis for it. We have really looked all over the place, there was no wave...In a three-cornered contest, there has to be nonetheless either a perception of what exactly the constituency is lacking in its present arrangement for a major anti-incumbency to occur or there has to be a perception that there is something really wonderful about the alternative...I can tell you that none of us have seen anything that will justify any concern on our part. We are quite relaxed going into tomorrow's counting," he said.
He further exuded confidence that the numbers the people have seen in the exit Polls will be proved wrong tomorrow.
"Not just Thiruvananthapuram, I am also 100 per cent confident that the numbers you have all seen in the exit polls for the nationwide picture will also be belied tomorrow," he said.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is poised for a hat-trick win in Lok Sabha polls with a massive majority, Exit polls predicted on Saturday and indicated that the ruling party at the Centre would improve its performance in several states ruled by other parties.
A few exit polls predicted that the BJP-led NDA could reach the goal of "400 paar" stated by BJP leaders in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls.
The exit polls predicted that the ruling BJP-led NDA is poised to improve its performance over its 2019 record when it won 352 seats. Two polls predicted the BJP also improving its numbers from the 303 seats it won in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Meanwhile, the exit poll predicted a marked rise in NDA's vote share in Tamil Nadu which is expected to go to 22 per cent. According to the Axis My India exit poll, the BJP-led NDA is expected to win 2-4 seats in Tamil Nadu. The INDIA bloc, which has both DMK and Congress in it, is set to win 33-37 seats out of 39 Lok Sabha seats.
The Narendra Modi-led BJP is seeking a third term in power, while the opposition INDIA bloc is aiming to wrest power by stopping the juggernaut.