There are people on LinkedIn, data scientists, stock analysts, CEOs, and the like, who are convinced that ‘nobody, and I mean NOBODY, could foresee this result’ and that the exit poll managers followed wherever data led them in their quest for the truth, and these are ‘thorough professionals’ who worked hard and can’t be blamed for making a few errors.
I don’t know which planet these highly educated and well-placed people are from, but science is not done in a vacuum, especially polls and surveys. If your data shows you something that your eyes and ears are clearly seeing the exact opposite of, you must revisit your conclusions or recalibrate your method that led you to obviously wrong conclusions. Paraphrasing the famous adage, if your gauge indicates it isn’t raining outside but you are standing soaking wet in the rain, your job as a meteorologist isn’t to report what the gauge said but to figure out what is wrong with your equipment, or your science. Simply insisting that since your data said it isn’t raining, you followed it, even at the cost of real, easily verifiable, objective truth well within your reach, does not make you a ‘thorough professional’. It makes you an idiot.
If only these ‘famous psephologists’ had bothered to look/walk/ask around themselves instead of blindly trusting the figures on their computers, they’d have seen what a sightless man on the dark side of the moon could have seen clearly: That the Modi magic was over, and the opposition was going to make a major comeback, with absolutely no hope of the ruling party crossing 400, or even coming within sniffing distance. I could see it, you could see it, the common Indian on the ground could see it. I want to let you in on a secret (because I’ve been involved in electoral politics and I know people from across the aisle around the country): Even the ruling party workers and politicians would admit to reality in private.
So, I ask myself that if people like you and me could see how this was most likely going to turn out, what are the chances that the BJP top brass (specifically Narendra and Amit), with the vast resources they had at their command, did not anticipate or even know this well in advance? After all, they run the intelligence departments of every arm of the government, they have almost unlimited funds and powers, they are the largest political party in the world, and they own the ether (meaning they have full access to all electronic communication). So, how believable is it that they were caught unawares?
Now, I am not saying this is what happened, but if N & A wanted to, they could have easily leaked this to their crony capitalists, who could then have ‘sponsored’ the exit polls while simultaneously shorting the market (maybe even their own shares) while watching gullible fools buying into the fake bull run manufactured by the ‘buoyant’ exit polls and their inflated projections, waited for the results, booked their profits as the market dropped like a rock, and used that (or at least part of that) windfall gain to fund the eventual horse trading that is surely going to happen.
Let me repeat: I am not saying this happened. Merely wondering how easy it would be, especially if you knew you were forming the next government, even with a reduced majority, and none of this would or could be investigated.
The point I am trying to make is that regardless of what happened, the exit poll chaps are far from innocent professionals who did their best. They are, at best, bumbling idiots who can’t do their jobs or sold-out fraudsters complicit in a criminal act. Take your pick. Just don’t call them professionals! That’s an insult to those of us who actually are.
