Yogendra Yadav questions Mood of the Nation poll, says BJP’s numbers overstated due to methodology

Political analyst Yogendra Yadav has questioned the methodology behind India Today’s latest Mood of the Nation (MOTN) survey, arguing that the poll gives the impression of being a fresh reading of public opinion after the recent youth protests, while it’s key Lok Sabha vote and seat projections rely heavily on older data.

The August 2026 MOTN projects that the BJP would win 261 Lok Sabha seats if elections were held today, with a 39 per cent vote share. The NDA is projected to win 326 seats with 45 per cent of the vote. The BJP’s tally is down from the 287 seats projected in the January MOTN, while the NDA has fallen from 352.

But Yadav says the numbers need to be read carefully.

India Today’s own methodology says the latest survey was conducted by CVoter between July 1 and August 25, covering 25,184 respondents across all Lok Sabha constituencies. However, for calculating the long-term trendline used for the vote and seat projections, another 91,795 interviews from CVoter’s regular tracker over the previous 24 weeks were included.

That takes the total number of respondents considered for the report to 116,644.

Only 25,184 respondents were part of the fresh July-August survey, while 91,795 interviews came from the preceding six months. In other words, the overwhelming majority of the data used for the electoral projection was collected before the latest political developments.

Yadav argues that this matters because the survey is being presented as a picture of the political mood after the Gen Z-led protests and other recent developments.

His argument can be explained through a simple example: if someone wants to know whether water supply has fallen during the latest month, giving them an average based on six months of data, including months when supply was normal, would not accurately capture the latest change.

According to Yadav, something similar has happened with the MOTN.

The India Today report itself highlights unemployment, inflation and Gen Z discontent as warning signs for the BJP. It describes the poll as coming at a political inflection point following the youth protests that culminated in the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Yet, when it comes to the headline projection of 261 BJP seats and 326 NDA seats, Yadav points out that the calculation also uses the much larger pool of older tracker data.

His contention is that the older responses could dilute any change in public sentiment that took place during the latest period.

So, while a reader may assume that the 261-seat projection is primarily a reflection of the political mood captured in July and August, the methodology shows that the calculation also depends substantially on data collected over the preceding 24 weeks.

Yadav therefore says the BJP’s vote share and seat projection could be systematically overstated.

Congress leader Brijesh Kalappa, who participated in a discussion on the MOTN on India Today, has also questioned the timing and composition of the data.

Kalappa said he asked during the programme whether the survey was conducted after May 20 and was told that it was.

He then pointed to the methodology and argued that a much larger number of respondents had been covered before the recent student agitation, while a considerably smaller number were surveyed later. According to him, combining the two sets can dilute the effect of any change in public opinion after the agitation.

Kalappa described this as the "magic of survey", arguing that publishing such figures can also influence how voters perceive the political situation.

The exact figures in India Today’s published methodology are 91,795 older tracker interviews and 25,184 fresh interviews, rather than the roughly 90,000 and 10,000 split cited by Kalappa.

Yadav’s criticism is not simply that the BJP projection is wrong. His main demand is transparency over how the figure was arrived at.

He has called for India Today to release vote-share projections based only on the August data, or at least the July-August data. He has also sought the sample size and questions asked in the different surveys that have been combined, along with the methodological details required under the World Association for Public Opinion Research standards.

The demand is significant because India Today says its poll follows WAPOR’s professional code and uses statistical weighting to make the sample representative across factors such as age, gender, education, caste, religion and urban-rural distribution.

Yadav’s point is that these methodological details should allow readers to understand not only how people were selected, but also how responses from different periods were combined to produce the final electoral projection.

The issue is about what "latest" means

The latest MOTN does show signs of a decline for the BJP. Its projected tally has fallen by 26 seats from January, while the Congress is projected to rise to 106 seats and the INDIA bloc to 185. At the same time, the NDA remains comfortably ahead with 326 seats.

Yadav’s objection is more specific: how much of this picture actually reflects the latest political mood?

For him, that question cannot be answered simply by looking at the headline.

The methodology makes clear that the electoral projections combine fresh July-August responses with a far larger pool of tracker data stretching back 24 weeks. Yadav argues that if the purpose is to assess the impact of the recent youth protests and other political developments, India Today should show what the latest data says on its own.

His proposed solution is straightforward: publish the recent numbers separately, disclose the sample sizes and questions for each component, and explain clearly how the final vote and seat projections were calculated.

That, Yadav argues, would allow readers to judge the political mood for themselves rather than relying on a single combined figure.