Good thing about the dicey exit polls
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: December 06, 2013 -
Switch on to any news channel, all that one could see and hear these days all day long over and over again is the announcement of various exit polls results in every conceivable language from across the length and breadth of the country.
These polls have been conducted by various pollsters, who are mainly private companies working for the concerned broadcasting firms.
In their bid to outdo one another, these news channels are also offering an overdose of panel discussion on the findings of the exit polls, which appear nothing but show of lung power among the panelists.
Even though the findings of the exit polls, which is actually a poll conducted immediately after the voters exited from the polling stations after casting their votes, may have greater weightage in comparison to the opinion polls of asking the voters whom they plan to vote for ahead of the polling day, it is a well-known fact how the results of these types of poll surveys could be completely misleading on various occasions.
The track records of the opinion as well as the exit polls conducted in India have also been nothing but patchy.
In the general elections of 2014, how the forecast of most surveys turned out to be all wrong is still fresh in the mind of the people. Yet, the news channels are not ready to call it quit.
Leaving aside the question of legality of such surveys, which, of course, is debatable, from all the cacophonies surrounding the exit polls results of the Assembly elections conducted in five States of the country, namely Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram, over the past one month, BJP has been forecasted as the biggest winner in four key States, with the ominous sign of giving a dead blow to the ruling Congress ahead of the Parliamentary election due next year.
Predictably, the opposition BJP is happy about the exit polls results while the ruling Congress has slammed it.
With the results of the Assembly results being dubbed as a semi-final ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the interest generated around the exit polls results not just among the various news channels but also among the political parties and political observers alike is understandable.
But what about the common man and woman on the streets of the country, whose fate has remained unchanged despite holding various elections and formation of Governments after every five years?
Well, while the news channels go on repeating their broadcast on exit polls results and the political parties as well as the political observers are debating over it, till the declaration of the real election results to know who got it right and who got it all wrong, the poor common man could take some solace from the fact that rupee has rose to a five-week high against the dollar and stocks jumped to near record highs, thanks to the exit polls prediction, howsoever, dicey it may be.
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