opinion polls and the actual ones

One of the most eagerly awaited elections in the recent past has come to a conclusion throwing up an absolutely unexpected result. Or was it really unexpected?

What we claim as unexpected is purely cased on the opinion and exit polls conducted in the state by the various leading news channels. It is not for the first time that the pollsters have been found wanting. If one looks at the past three to four years ( I do not hav much knowledge of the polls before that) , the opinion polls have been found to be invariably wrong. The worst case of that being when the BJP was routed from power in the 2004 general elections and the Congress was sweeped into power by the Indian voter. Almost every single channel had predicted a thumping victory for the NDA. And if I remember right only one gentleman , Yogendra Yadav ,if I remember his name right, had suggested that the congress had any semblance of chance in his series of articles he had written for The Hindu.

So all these leads one to ponder whether opinion polls are indeed worth their money? Has the Indian voter emerged to be a lot more intelligent than he has ever been made out to be? My answer to the former is no and to the latter is yes. The Indian voter has indeed come a long way to a stage where he is voting on the basis of micro issues, issues that affects his day to day life. The voter has shown that no amount of spin-doctoring in the media will fool him and is not carried away by the campaign style and instead on the substance in the campaign. The elections in Bihar are a very crucial indicator of how the common man is frustrated with the governance being meted out. Though caste has also played a very vital part in the victory alliance, the caste equation has changed. With these elections the Bihar voters have joined the mainstream voters across the nation. So may the politicians be aware of the changing ground realities and do what they are supposed to - Govern properly.

what's happened to the indian team

This has been a crazy past couple of weeks for the Indian team and even more so for the millions of cricketing enthusiasts across the nation(ob I count myself among them) . Though in one of my (limited) previous blogs I had admonished the media attention being given to them, at heart I am still a lover of the gentleman's game. The kind of a comeback that this team has done is remarkable. Though it might seem silly to give so much hype to just 5 victories against a team which has never been comfortable with the travelers bag its tough to put this down just because of the nature of the victories. Sri Lanka have been mauled. Indians seem to have put on the surgeon's mask. And when I do put one on myself and dissect the team's performance the results are just amazing.


Unlike the previous tournaments where Indians have done well this is one where every single individual (Sehwag excluded) has produced atleast one match winning effort instead of just two or three people carrying the whole team on their shoulders. Everyone seems to putting their heart and soul into it. And most of all the way that Sachin and Rahul have performed their duties as the senior pros is amazing. One moment which stands out is when Dravid gave Sachin the credit for the promotion of Pathan in the first ODI. That speaks volumes about Dravid the leader and the team man. It is not that easy for any captain to admit to the fact that the decision that won him the match came from someone else's suggestion.

And now to the question on top of everyone's mind. What happens to Dada , the man who was the architect of revival team India act 1. As things right now present a rather rosy picture it is natural for people to forget what he has done for the team. The match winners we see now in Kaif, (I hate to admit it) Yuvraj,Pathan , Harbhajan are all what he created. For the very people who backed him and praised him , to call for the gulliton to his career is disheartening . The team might not need him right now but then Dada deserves better treatment from the media than is being meted out to him now.