Mint Primer: The verdict in three minutes

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₹4.56 trillion towards welfare schemes in the last five years. This included ₹2.71 trillion by way of direct benefit transfers (DBT) and ₹1.84 trillion towards non-DBT spending. Its leader and incumbent chief minister Y.S.

Jagan Mohan Reddy did not give a similar impetus to development. In fact, he painted those who wanted economic growth and development as anti-poor and termed this election as a class war between the poor and the rich. But the lack of jobs and other economic opportunities angered people, especially in the urban areas.

Telugu Desam Party leader Chandrababu Naidu fought for development and said without economic growth, welfare schemes cannot be funded. People have given him a massive mandate. It is ironic that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) seem to have read the minds of the Indian voter better than their local counterparts.

Anticipating a sub-optimal performance by the BJP, they pulled out as much as ₹25,586 crore from the equity markets in May. On the other hand, domestic investors pumped in over ₹40,000 crore. The stock markets crashed—the BSE Sensex by more than 4,000 points—on Tuesday, as the results began to come in and the possibility of a coalition government became clear.

While local investors counted their losses (total market capitalization of listed stocks fell by ₹31 trillion on the day), FIIs that exited are laughing their way to the bank. The performance of exit polls in India has been, at best, patchy. In 2004, they predicted a victory for Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led BJP, but the opposite happened.

Since then, their record has improved. They mostly get the direction right while lacking in accuracy. But the 2024 election has exposed the limitation of their predictive models.