By Suresh Unnithan
Last evening, as the sun dipped over the Hooghly and the voting ink dried on millions of Bengali fingers, Indian television underwent a spontaneous collective lobotomy. What unfolded on the self-proclaimed national channels wasn’t journalism, analysis, or even informed speculation. It was prime-time vaudeville, sponsored by hope, TRP, and the fervent belief that repeating “unprecedented victory” enough times would magically summon it into existence.
Picture this: A panel of professors, self-styled psephologists, battle-hardened pro-BJP scribes, and anchors with hair gel stronger than their convictions, all synchronized like a well-rehearsed a cappella group. “Bengal is falling!” they sang in perfect harmony across five channels. “Mamata’s fortress is breached! Poriborton 2.0 is here!” One expert, eyes gleaming with the fire of a thousand WhatsApp forwards, declared BJP would cross 180 seats with the ease of a Sunday morning luchi breakfast. Another, a suited academic who probably last visited Bengal during a 2019 book launch, nodded sagely: “The ground is saffron, the wind is saffron, even the fish curry smells of lotus these days.”
My wife, a former journalist now elbow-deep in serious agriculture (where predictions are based on soil, not surveys), burst out laughing. “This is better than Kapil Sharma,” she declared, wiping tears that had nothing to do with onions from the kitchen. “At least Kapil knows he’s joking.”
The exit polls themselves were a comedy of numbers. Most agencies, with the solemnity of astrologers reading horoscopes, handed BJP a comfortable to sweeping majority—146-161 here, 150-175 there, even an ambitious 178-208 from the boldest soothsayer. TMC was graciously allotted the runner-up consolation prize of 99-140 seats. One plucky outlier, People’s Pulse, dared to swim against the tide, projecting a comfortable TMC win around 177-187. But who cares about outliers when the chorus is so loud and the TRP so sweet?
Switch channels and the script remained eerily identical, as if all panelists had attended the same Zoom briefing titled “How to Sound Confident While Predicting the End of Didi.” The arguments were less debate, more ritualistic incantation. “Anti-incumbency is at its peak!” one would thunder. “Sandeshkhali! Teachers’ recruitment scam! Syndicate raj!” the others would chant back, like seasoned kirtan performers. Facts? Optional. Nuance? For losers. Ground reports from actual Bengal? Quaint relics from the pre-TRP era.
Meanwhile, on social media and YouTube, the tamasha took a more chaotic, less polished turn. My former colleague Punyaprasun Vajpayee, bless his soul, was valiantly pushing back, arguing the exit polls were biased against the “Bengal lioness” and that Mamata Banerjee’s TMC was cruising to a comfortable victory. Other YouTubers, self-proclaimed “ground zero” warriors with mics and motorbikes, uploaded breathless videos claiming secret meetings, hidden voter waves, and insider adda sessions that pointed to a super win for Didimoni. The comments sections became gladiatorial arenas where “Lotus will bloom” clashed with “Didi is eternal” in an endless loop of memes, abuses, and conspiracy theories.
As a practicing journalist and editor who has seen enough election cycles to develop a healthy allergy to manufactured certainty, I watched this spectacle for over two hours until a migraine mercifully intervened. These “experts” weren’t analyzing data; they were performing political wisdom scripted by invisible masters—party strategists, channel owners, or perhaps the gods of TRP themselves. The same anchors who once dissected every Modi rally with surgical precision now sounded like cheerleaders at a victory parade that hadn’t happened yet. The professors, far from their dusty lecture halls, spouted seat projections with the confidence of bookies who had already collected their cuts.
My wiser half had long abandoned the idiot box for the kitchen, muttering something about how real life—growing crops, dealing with erratic monsoons—teaches more humility than television ever could. Agriculture doesn’t care about your narrative; the plants either grow or they don’t. Exit polls, apparently, grow whatever the channel malik waters.
This wasn’t prediction. This was entertainment packaged as prophecy. A two-hour special where Delhi’s drawing-room warriors fought the Battle of Bengal using nothing but hyperbole, cherry-picked anecdotes, and impressive-sounding numbers that will be quietly forgotten (or furiously defended) once the actual results drop on May 4.
History whispers a cautionary tale: Bengal has embarrassed exit polls before. The state loves springing surprises on those who treat it like a laboratory for national trends rather than a living, breathing, argumentative civilization with its own stubborn soul. Mamata Banerjee didn’t build her empire by reading polite surveys. Nor did the BJP rise in the state by underestimating her street-fighting instincts.
Yet here we were, glued to screens, watching grown men and women treat uncertain data like gospel, all while the real voters—millions who stood in queues under the April sun—laughed last, as they always do.
By the time I switched off the TV, my headache had company: the creeping realization that in the age of 24×7 news, exit polls have become less about forecasting elections and more about manufacturing drama to keep eyeballs hostage. The channels won their TRP battle yesterday. The real war for Bengal will be decided not in studios but in counting centers, where no anchor can spin the EVMs and no professor can debate the ballots.
Until then, dear viewers, enjoy the circus. The clowns are highly educated, extremely well-dressed, and paid handsomely to pretend they know what 294 assembly constituencies are thinking. Pass the popcorn—and perhaps some mishti doi for that authentic Bengali touch. The show must go on…