Well, everybody’s doing it, so why don’t we? In the silly season of numerology, who has the numbers? Delhi Daredevils, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals are aiming to score the most points; Congress-UPA, BJP-NDA and Third Front challengers are hoping for the highest number of seats.

If we gaze into the liquid TV screen, what do we see happening this week? Much the same that happened last week and the week before that. In the absence of opinion polls, TV election coverage was fixated with personalities and what they said — Varun Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, L K Advani, Narendra Modi, etc — and last week, most famously with Amar Singh, who, India TV declared on Friday, will quit politics on May 13 (an in/auspicious date?)

We also saw a lot of shadow-boxing: TV channels and political parties have conducted opinion/exit polls but because of an official ban, could not share them with us. Result? Polls passed off as numerical ‘projections’ like the one on Times Now, Sunday; discussions between TV anchors and panelists often based on poll ‘projections’ they know about but we don’t. Surreal.

Wednesday is the final day of polling and from 5 pm onwards, news channels should begin to count the votes. Should see polls, opinion polls, combined polls for the five different phases of the election with each channel predicting an outcome that will differ from the others (otherwise, why have your own predictions?). Discussions led by the individual whose misfortune it has been to sit out the election thus far, or, appear on TV like the emperor without his clothes: the psephologist. That poor worthy has been forced into vague assessments deprived of the polls and numbers that previously gave him an insight and foresight none could match. They’ll be joined by leading editors, historians, and we believe, Shobaa De. They will carve up the country on the basis of caste, religion, politics, development and the ‘swing’ factor to explain the ‘people’s verdict’. Expect a little more coherence since the picture will be viewed in totality, with retrospective effect.

... contd.