Changing coloursPrasar Bharati CEO S.S. Gill had a brain-wave. At the eleventh hour he ordered that the exit poll - which was to be telecast on Doordarshan for five hours - should be broadcast simultaneously on AIR. The result was chaos. Regular programmes were taken off AIR without any notice. The dialogue of the TV script made little sense to radio listeners with the constant refrain to look at the graphics and the verbal exchanges. All the advertisements on DD had perforce to be carried by AIR as well since the programme was transmitted live from Doordarshan's regional centres. It is a moot point whether the advertisers who are paying the private producer on DD will agree to reimburse Prasar Bharati for the added publicity on radio!Meanwhile, apprehending the arrival of a BJP government, the powers that be in Prasar Bharati are trying desperately to mend their fences with the party. A spiritual leader close to Bal Thackeray has been contacted to act as a mediator. And DD's carefullyselected panel of intellectuals invited to programmes which used to represent the voice of secularism and social upliftment is being altered to accommodate those whose thinking has a saffron hue.Arab and camelNot only were both Doordarshan channels handed over to the private company TV Today, for the 72 hours when election results were trickling in, but DD's in-house news bulletins were treated like unwanted stepchildren. TV Today received the election data from the Government-run NICNET computer agency courtesy Doordarshan and in turn sub-contracted to another private agency for processing the data from NICNET. When the Doordarshan staff tried to access the election data from the sub-contractor for their own news bulletins, the company refused to part with the information on the grounds that its contract was exclusively with TV Today.Left in the lurch, a dozen DD editors had no recourse but to sit in front of the TV Today programme jotting down the latest tallies of the election results forpreparing the national news telecasts. DD's own reports of election results consequently lagged much behind TV Today and Star TV's, making it a laughing stock.Pasta breakNormally during campaigning, politicians grab a bite wherever they can and take what is offered by their constituents, even if their stomach linings revolt. But Sonia Gandhi was in the fortunate position of being able to maintain her gracious life-style while on the campaign trail.For example, the following was a request menu prepared by a hotel in Vadodara for Sonia and Rahul when they visited Gujarat: Ravioli pasta, Cannelloni pasta, Fish Amandini, Mushroom leek soup, Chicken Alexander, boiled vegetables, salad, rice followed by fresh strawberries with cream and rasmalai.Polls apartThe share of seats projected to the BJP and its allies (including the Trinamool Congress) in the exit poll by the Development Research Services (DRS) which was telecast on Doordarshan was 252 and it turned out to be almost identicalto the actual figure of 251, despite the howls of protests from Congressmen that the poll was fixed.But the figure seems to have been arrived at by chance rather than design, with glaring errors in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu obviously cancelling each other out. G.V.L. Narasimha Rao, director of DRS, points out that in the two States where the psephologists went totally haywire, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, the voter turnout was most unusual. Rajasthan had its highest turn-out ever at 61 per cent and Tamil Nadu its lowest of 45 per cent. Perhaps, in deriving their models, psephologists should also consider the turnout factor in future.DRS got it right in most of the country. Arun Nehru's final projection of 241 is also remarkably accurate until you realise that his break-up of the BJP and its allies is way off the mark (192+49). The ORG-MARG exit poll tally of 208 for the BJP and allies clearly comes in last in the poll-prediction game.Blunderbuss KesriThe Pawar lobby clamouring forparty president Sitaram Kesri's head points out that he virtually snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by conceding a crucial chunk of 50 MPs to the BJP.Consider the following: R.K. Hegde was keen to align with the Congress, but Kesri dismissed his demand for 10 seats in Karnataka as excessive. Kesri muffed up a possible alliance with Jayalalitha by sending his lieutenant Pranab Mukherjee to negotiate, infuriating the imperious Jayalalitha who insists on talking only to the top man. When Kesri reneged from the agreement reached with Mamata Banerjee over ticket nominations for West Bengal, a furious Mamata walked out of the Congress.Even the poor DMK paid a price for Kesri's blundering. Anxious to divert attention from the Bofors issue, Kesri insinuated that the RSS might be responsible for the Coimbatore blasts. Angry that Kesri was detracting from the serious implications of the serial blasts by making frivolous allegations, Tamil Nadu voters got polarised and vented their anger against the DMK,since the Congress did not figure in the electoral race in the State.
