In any case, our psephologists are among the glibbest talkers in the media business. They can talk rings around you about the swing factor, the switch factor, the margin of error, the index of popularity, the index of unpopularity, the index of opposition unity, the index of opposition disunity, the silent voter, an unspoken undercurrent and so on.

The "margin of error" phrase is a particularly useful safety belt. Most pollsters put this margin of error at a high five per cent on either side. Another helpful ploy is to predict a bandwidth rather than a single figure. So if you predicted between 100 and 115 seats for party A and 95 to 110 seats for party B, you can still claim to be correct if A gets 100 and B gets 110, even though you predicted that A would be the frontrunner and it actually ended up being the loser! I once saw a pollster patting himself on the back for just this scenario.

And if all else goes wrong, you can always point out that you had mentioned there was a five per cent undecided voter, and all of them swung in one direction at the last minute leading to the miscalculation.

Of late, a new trend has emerged. Give a detailed discourse on a state going to the polls. Provide percentages of what people think of leader A and leader B and issue C and issue D, but avoiding putting your money where your mouth is by projecting a seat tally. Without giving specific figures, but simply using jargon, you can claim you predicted every possible outcome.

... contd.