It sang out across channels: ‘Singh is king, Singh is king’, a salute Manmohan Singh last heard after the nuclear vote of confidence last summer. Suddenly, he was the flavour of the day, once more. Aaj Tak neatly summed up the election result in a graphic of the ‘weakest Prime Minister’ with a highly developed gladiatorial physique seated in a chariot, bow and arrow in hand with Rahul Gandhi sounding the victory conch and Sonia Gandhi at the helm.  

Something of a surprise to the average viewer who had been led to expect from coverage before last week’s exit polls that UPA was just a nose ahead of NDA. Up to last Wednesday, the coverage had alternated between debates on campaign speeches — in particular, who said what about whom — and debates on who thought they might become prime minister in a coalition government not led by NDA (answer, everyone but Prakash Karat!). Why, we began to expect a cabinet of prime ministers from different political persuasions. 

Then, the exit polls or ‘projections’. These unanimously gave UPA the lead. Star News, CNN-IBN and NDTV crossed 200 for the UPA. This led to discussions on every conceivable political permutation to ‘Catch 272’ as Headlines Today winsomely put it, right up until Saturday 8 am when the countdown began. And then pouf! All the possibilities that had been explored in depth like a prehistoric excavation, were instantly buried under the decisive results.  

So, the polls had pointed in the right direction but none came close to the final tally. In the event, they did exercise abundant caution: Prannoy Roy issued a continuous health warning, saying a one per cent margin of error could result in 20 seats this way and that (NDTV 24 x7), Yogendra Yadav qualified everything he said continually (CNN-IBN) while Arnab Goswami projected numbers that were not based, he said, on an exit poll at all, so there (Times Now).   

... contd.