Some self-restraint at last

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">exit polls shown on television screens always attract a large number of viewers and last week was no exception. as usual the polls also draw a lot of flak from parties who did not like their predicament made public even before the actual results were out. to some extent, they were perhaps justified as the polls can have the effect of influencing voters in states where the election is held in two or more phases. the issue was discussed at some length in battleground on star news and the consensus was that since a ban could not be imposed as the supreme court had declated that to be an infringement of fundamental rights, the pollsters themselves should exercise self restraint. whether the channels which conduct such polls listen to this advice remains to be seen. it is not just a matter of restraint. how fair are the polls, do the political inclinations of the channels come into play? this time three channels were on the job, aaj tak, sahara and doordarshan and it was interesting to watch their forecasts about uttar pradesh. aaj tak always gave the bjp a much greater number of seats than the other two and sahara was clearly favouring the samajwadi party. it was as if the samples were chosen with care and not picked up in a random manner. doordarshan was much more balanced and in the end gave the bjp around 100 seats in up which was much closer to the actual figure. good work prasar bharati. battleground was anchored by pranay roy and once again he insisted on being sensible. even as the forecasts were being analysed, he kept on telling viewers: “don’t take these polls too seriously as there may be quite a few surprises on the counting day.� sensible also was yogendra yadav as referring to the uttaranchal and manipur forecasts, remarked, “i really fail to understand how the pollsters are making it to the constituencies through difficult terrain and yet sending their findings dot on time.� the implied suggestion should make the concerned people scratch their heads and the election commission also would perhaps do well to take a look at the issue. yadav’s cool, objective analysis of the scenario in each state before the polls, in the votenama programme must also be appreciated by those who saw it. incidentally why was parkash singh badal complaining about the exit polls? punjab had a single day election and the rout for his party and the bjp that was forecast could not have influenced anybody. coming back to doordarshan, there are many who tend to ignore it as it does not go in for the showmanship of private chhanels. but on counting day, it did a very professional job ensuring that viewers missed nothing. doordarshan may lack in glitter, but it has experience on its side. after all it has been doing the job and doing it well for over a quarter century. watching figures and mentally calculating numbers over a stretch of time can be pretty taxing and looking for a break, on sunday evening, one began to switch channels and etv bangla came on screen. what a relief it was to find chinmoy roy as the guest on the rituporno talk show. he was like a breath or fresh air and in no time, the laughter began to bubble up as he talked of things past. for instance, the film he has made in which he admitted picking up a lot of stuff from <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">goopi gyne</span>... and asked the question, “why should i be ashamed of copying ray? i did not copy any tom, dick or harry, i did not copy you,� the last part aimed at rituporno himself. how difficult was it for a comedian to act the role of a dumb character in ray’s <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">chiriakhana</span>? “no problem at all as manikda himself showed me what i should do with the fingers, what expressions i should give and exactly what kind of sound should come out of my throat.� </div> </div>