Media In India/elsewhere -2

[Guest]

<b>Numbers on Gujarat’s wall</b><i>Modi proved that if leaders have credibility they can win again and again.</i>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->An analysis of the Gujarat result reveals that the BJP’s victory margin over the Congress has increased beyond 2002. In 2002, the BJP led by 9.5 per cent votes. The lead this time is 11 per cent. A larger lead has resulted in fewer seats essentially because of the uneven size of the constituencies and the large BJP vote being concentrated on winning seats. In percentage terms, the victory margin in Saurashtra is 9 per cent; north Gujarat 9 per cent, south Gujarat 14 per cent and, surprisingly, in central Gujarat, the BJP has lead the Congress alliance by 10 per cent. Despite the 10 per cent lead in central Gujarat, the BJP got fewer seats than the Congress because of ‘wasted votes’. The margin of victory in BJP seats was very high and the margin of defeat in others, narrow.

<b>Why is it that the national media refused to gauge the public mood and BJP’s 11 per cent lead almost uniformly spread across four regions? This is because of an oppressive environment that a section of the media felt it could create. Fair reporting was considered a journalistic sin since it would report a Modi win and hence the rule was to misreport.</b> This resulted in a bandwagon effect which essentially involved acceptance of every theoretical proposition propounded by BJP rebels, some of whom had become ideological guides for the Congress. A ‘K’ factor was invented. The BJP would be routed in Saurashtra because of the revolt of the Patels, the Kolis and even the farmers. On the ground, no such factors seriously existed. Even if there was a mild slippage of Patel votes it was more than compensated and in fact enhanced by the OBC vote, Kshatriya vote and Modi’s credibility.

<b>The Soharabuddin speech was deliberately interpolated to include sentences like “This is what I did — what is wrong with what I did” and “Soharabuddin got what he deserved”. </b>

<b>Even the going rate of illegal satta market was misreported on the front page of a newspaper.</b> I seriously believe the credibility of a section of the national media is at stake. Not merely because Gujarat’s people chose not to be guided by it but because of this deliberate perversity. Media organisations which claim to have its own in-house ombudsmen would surely take note of this. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Psephologists also suffered credibility jolt. The admission of some — that the raw data favoured Modi but factoring in improbables like fear and over reporting landed them in error — raises a fundamental question. Are we being guided by participatory psephologists? A participant in a political process may well want Modi to lose. But can the participant sift the data and reach an anti-Modi conclusion on the basis of these improbables? Being dissatisfied with the results on various opinion and exit polls, I decided to conduct an exit-poll through a professional agency, purely for my party’s understanding. Its conclusions were close to the final results.  <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->