One of the largest Fortnightly Magazine of India has put out a political survey “Mood of the Nation” last week. In that survey, they have shown us how the popularity index of Modi Ji has declined from 66% last year to 24% this year. This magazine does this kind of survey throughout the year. Who is the Best Chief Minister among all the states, who is gaining popularity in the Prime Minister race, how the Prime Minister is performing, are some of their agenda for a survey.
This method of putting out survey reports for the public to read and react was first introduced to the readers of India by the India Today group in early 1980. And now, this survey also is from the same group. In 1980, when the survey report of Mr Pronoy James Roy was published in their magazine, and it said that Mrs Indira Gandhi will win the Loksabha election with a big margin, nobody believed him. Almost all the journalists of the country mocked him for this report. Because, in 1977, after the Emergency, Indira Gandhi lost to the Janata Party due to her and her son Sanjay Gandhi’s atrocious activities during the emergency period. Their collective popularity was down to the bottom. On the other hand, Janata Party was big and thumping with people’s support, who wanted political revenge from the Gandhis. After the defeat, Congress was divided into two parts as well. One part was with Indira (Indira Congress) and the other one was with other big leaders of the Congress party. In this scenario, winning the Loksabha election, that too with a big margin was not digestible even to the News Traders of that time. The then editor of India Today Magazine, Mr Arun Poori had to write an article in the magazine’s next issue saying he does not support Mr Pronoy James Roy’s survey results. But while the result came out, Indira won with a big margin. The whole journalist fraternity was surprised by this result.
The next survey report of Mr Pronoy James Roy was published in favour of Mr Rajiv Gandhi in 1984. Mr Roy said in his survey that Rajiv Gandhi will win more than 400 seats in the Loksabha Election. Again no one believed him. Rajiv Gandhi was new to Politics. He took over the dynastic throne of Congress India after his mother Mrs Indira Gandhi was killed by the assassins. Getting a patriarchal property, in his case maternal property, does not make you a popular politician, people said that time. Yes, there were sentiments of Indira Gandhi with him, but, getting more than 400 seats in Loksabha was a ‘far away’ for him. But when the result came out, Rajiv won 426 seats. Everybody was taken aback both by the result and the prediction as well. The Name ‘Pronoy Roy’ became famous in India.
Since then, this kind of ‘popularity check’ survey, opinion polls etc became a thriving business in India. Many jumped in. Now there were not one but almost five to six survey reports for any given matter. Reports started to become dispensable. If one agency was right this time, next time the same agency gave wrong assessments as well. So, there was no consistency from any agency. But India Today still was best among all the players.
Last evening I read an article by Mr Sudhangshu Trivedi. The subject of the article was about how the same subject which can take you up the ladder, can take you down to the bottom as well if the main passion for the subject changes. The same thing happened with India Today also. They were doing this kind of survey since the 1980s and almost every time they were right. Came 1996. The Vajpayee era. Even India Today started publishing wrong reports consistently. Why did this happen?
Since the 1980s, while the India Today group was conducting the survey, they were doing it with a passion. The passion was for Congress. They were doing it in a great way because their love and passion towards congress were working for them as well. But when the Vajpayee era started, I mean, when the results were actually leaning towards the Non-Congress Nationalist party, then their passion started working against the job. Now they were busy showing the BJP on the losing side by any means. Even it involves manipulating data. Now when Modi Ji is a Global Leader and India Today’s poster boy at 51 is a laughing stock for the country, their predictions are seldom right.
In the Modi era, these fortune tellers never made it right. In 2014, they had to go with the flow as BJP’s win became a Universal Truth that time and Modi Ji was declared as the PM Candidate. In 2019, they predicted that Modi will lose. Then they predicted again and said, even if the BJP wins, it’ll not get a majority and outside help will be necessary. The outside helpers will not allow Modi Ji to become the Prime Minister again. All the permutations and combinations of these fortune tellers fell facedown when the result came out. Modi Ji won 303.
