Start-up founded by Prashant Kishor’s ex-associates got 5 state poll results right

P-MARQ was set up in 2019 by Animesh Pandey and Abbin Theepura

ITDC INDIA EPRESS/ITDC NEWS Poll pundit Prashant Kishor has been basking in the glory of victories in the recently held Assembly elections in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, where he was involved in the election strategy of the Trinamool Congress and the DMK, respectively. Interestingly, a relatively unknown firm founded by his former colleagues has made a mark in the exit poll industry, accurately predicting the winners in the last five state elections.

Politique Marquer (P-MARQ)—a consumer and research technology start-up founded by Animesh Pandey and Abbin Theepura, former colleagues of Kishor—was one of the few polling agencies to accurately predict the winner in all four states that went to polls recently: West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam. Pandey and Theepura had spent many years at Kishor's organisation, I-PAC, before starting out on their own. They had been bang-on in last year's Assembly election in Bihar too, where their consultancy had predicted that the BJP-JD(U) alliance was winning, even as most exit polls had claimed that the opposition alliance led by the RJD had an advantage.