This is my take on the Parliamentary Election 2024 exit poll survey now being beamed in all TV channels. This has made the Opposition sulk. Personally speaking, my faith in this exit poll survey is same as my faith in astrology. It is not ipso facto always correct. But sometimes…

Honestly, in the matter of luck, chance, turning point (Fali S. Nariman, the famous Constitutional lawyer, has spoken about the importance of ‘turning points’ in one’s life in his autobiography) and destiny, I am inclined to believe in all of them from my own life experience. I may just add one caveat —  patiently bide your time.

Prathap Simha, the BJP MP lost the 2024 Mysuru-Kodagu MP ticket to the Royal family member despite his above-average good work and ability to counter every accusation of the Opposition with blazing fire-power. He naturally was in despair. But there was consolation when he received an e-mail message, I learn, from PMO’s Office which was cryptic in its content: “Please have trust and patience.” This may read like a consolation message but it tells the importance of patience and ability to bide the time in our life’s journey.

Let me quote the Old Testament: “I came and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift; nor the battle to the strong, neither, yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, not yet favour to men of skill but time and chance happens to them all.” So there is hope for losers too in this world.

Now, with this preamble, let me come to the puzzle before us, a sort of Gordian Knot to untie. Looking at the figures of the poll survey, I do not think we need Alexander the Great to untie this knot. Our psephologists have done a better job than the astrologer and Alexander the Great.

The gap seen on the TV screen between the NDA seats and the I.N.D.I. Alliance (I.N.D.I.A) seats is so wide it is unlikely to shrink in favour of I.N.D.I. Alliance on 4th June 2024 when votes are counted.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s clarion call this time, when he launched the election campaign, was ‘Abki baar 400 paar.’ The hurriedly cobbled I.N.D.I. Alliance could not decide who the Prime Ministerial candidate would be and yet their tin-pot leaders laughed at the audacity of Modi. Rahul Gandhi, the presumptive Prime Minister, who had prepared the ground for 2024 elections with two padayatras, declared in his typical authoritative rhetoric that Modi would be below the magic number of 272.

Facts are sacred in what we say and write in Journalism. This is a fact: That Rahul Gandhi did not say ‘Abki baar Rahul Sarkar,’ but in some Congress quarters, led by his four close confidantes — K.C. Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Mani Shankar Aiyar and Sam Pitroda — it is taken for granted that should I.N.D.I. Alliance win, the PM would be Rahul Gandhi Ji. Why not? After all, he is the leader of India’s Grand Old Party (GOP), no matter Congress gets, among its alliance partners, highest number of seats or not. That is entitlement of a dynasty. Morons among the voters must understand this and shut up till the deliverance day — 4th June 2024.

Looking at the exit poll predictions going in favour of Modi, Congress leaders are jittery and busy discrediting the exit polls in spite of the fact that all the agencies that conducted the poll survey predicted the doom of I.N.D.I. Alliance and the blooming of the BJP. They forgot that sampling in exit poll is Science and there is a protocol to be observed. Which is why in 2023 Assembly polls in Karnataka, the exit poll predicted the victory of Siddaramaiah’s Congress correctly. Therefore, we may not believe in astrology, but we may well believe in exit polls.

Remember, even in 2004 and 2009 when the country was ruled by the shadow Prime Minister, the Congress had got a mere 145 and 206 seats respectively, far below the magic number of 272 or so. Thanks, specially to the Leftist parties of West Bengal, Kerala and UP and other Regional Parties. Congress, leading the UPA, formed the governments.

However, in 2014, when Narendra Modi entered the election fray and swept the nation like a tempest with his fiery speeches in chaste Hindi, the Congress citadel, already in a dilapidated condition, began to crumble and collapsed to a historic low of two digits, 44, that its leader Rahul Gandhi could not even become the Leader of the Opposition.

And worse, the Left parties who blazed the political sky of India prior to 2014, became effete and began to decline, so much so both Congress and its Left allies were made to go down on their knees by the intelligent voters. Voters realised, how in the past, they were taken for a ride in the name of secularism, minority rights and crony capitalism embedded in large scale corruption.

Who had ever thought that India, the poor boy among the fat boys of the world, would turn the fantasy world of Congress party topsy-turvy in 2014, 2019 and now, according to the exit poll, in 2024?

Yes Sir. As the Old Testament, quoted above, says now “time and chance” has happened to BJP, the political underdog for too long, once again for the third time. But wait till tomorrow, 4th June 2024, for the final word, to make it official.

Early last month I had received a message from a friend in America about the expected results of the Lok Sabha election 2024 according to an astrologer of great repute. My friend had, in a note, asked me to keep it for reference to cross-check on 4th June 2024. The astrologer has estimated the State-wise NDA seats as follows [see box].

So, it is as Modi declared: Abki baar 400 paar… Phir ek baar Modi Sarkar, according to this astrologer.

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