THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, March 1: Doordarshan made a fool of itself, viewers and two top leaders of the rival fronts in the State for about an hour during its Exit Poll '98 programme on the national network on Saturday.The tamasha took place immediately after Exit Poll '98, anchored by Nalini Singh, announced the results of Kerala which projected Congress-led UDF winning 12 seats and CPM-led LDF 8. DD's attempt then to get hooked to Thiruvananthapuram Kendra failed. After the regional news concluded at 7.30 pm, Thiruvananthapuram Kendra tried to establish link with DD to air the views of Congress leader K Karunakaran and CPM politburo member S Ramachandran Pillai, who were shown waiting at the studio.As the national network failed to get connected, Nalini went ahead with the rest of the programme. But viewers in Kerala had to be content with the chagrined faces of the local anchor, its crew, the restless faces of Karunakaran and Pillai.The anchor was seen continuously trying to pacify the leaders citingtechnical failure. But a visibly irritated Karunakaran kept on saying ``We have been waiting for one-and-a-half hours. Can't this be done tomorrow? Why only today?'' and so on.The nervous anchor man expressed his helplessness in putting off the follow-up from Thiruvananthapuram, which was part of the national programme. Finally at 8.20 pm, after several unsuccessful attempts to get the link, he requested the leaders to cooperate till 8.30 pm for a last attempt. ``Till 8.30 only, thank God,'' said Karunakaran, sarcastically.The DD station engineer informed that though they had got connected to Delhi at 7 pm, the link could not take off due to some audio hitch. The audio problem was rectified within minutes even as Nalini Singh moved on to Karnataka.He said that the leaders were requested to wait since Delhi informed that Thiruvananthapuram was next. ``We did not go off the air believing that our chance would come any moment,'' he said.Ravi Kumar said it was finally decided not to wait for theconnection. Hassled, both leaders left the studio at 8.30 pm.
