The Hindu : Pollsters wrong: Jayalalithaa

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Saturday, Apr 03, 2004

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National - Elections 2004

Pollsters wrong: Jayalalithaa

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, APRIL 2. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK general secretary, Jayalalithaa, today debunked the opinion polls that predicted a "paltry number of seats" for the AIADMK-BJP alliance in the State.

"Most of these opinion polls employ questionable methodologies and inadequate samples [are] used to manipulate results in order to sensationalise and sway voter behaviour," she said in a statement.

Specifically referring to the Indian Express-NDTV opinion poll conducted by A.C. Nielsen, she said such opinion polls "reveal a total lack of understanding of the lifeline of democracy — the great people of this great country who exercise their choices and mind independent of all the electoral arithmetic touted by the psephologists," she said. "In fact, even seasoned psephologists have often admitted that their opinion polls have mostly been wrong in the case of Tamil Nadu."

Ms. Jayalalithaa said she had never set much store by these calculated predictions "as I always believe in direct communication with the people who are our real masters." Her campaign was a straightforward and direct dialogue with the people "who have reposed unshakeable faith in me."

With the "sole exception" of 1996, the people of Tamil Nadu had reposed their faith in her. In the 2001 Assembly election, the pollsters had initially written her off. As the date of the election neared, they had to improve their forecast and indicate that it would be a close contest. But, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam won a thumping victory far ahead of any poll prediction.

"So far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, perhaps the only prediction that is always proved right is that the pollster is proved wrong.... Pollsters' predictions of election results in Tamil Nadu are about as reliable as predicting the results of one-day cricket matches," she said.

However, Ms. Jayalalithaa said she did not want to comment on the findings of opinion polls with regard to other parts of the country (which gave her ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party, a large number of seats).

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