As usual,
when elections do happen, all the predictors of the future have a hay
day.
The candidates,
their well wishers and any one else worth their salt flocks to the soothsayers-
to find out their fate and the auspicious time for the filing of nominations
etc. So, in order to give an opportunity to these people to show the
efficacy of their so called sciences of prophecy the Federation of Indian
Rationalist Associations gave an opportunity to all interested to forecast
the results of the Karnataka Vidhan Sabha elections to be held in the
month of May,2008.
An award
of Rs.1, 000, 000 was announced for those who could predict correctly
the results. The award would go as Rs.200, 000 each to five entries
which would be correct within the error limits of ±10%. If more than
5 such entries were received the said amount would be equally divided
among the winners. Time was given up to the date of counting for the
receipt of entries. Some of questions were quite general while the most
were very specific like the total number of votes some important candidates
would poll. Altogether 140 entries were received. Due to errors committed
by some of the moffusil papers, a good number of incomplete ones were
also received. These had treated the prediction challenge as a sort
of quiz with the prizes, while it was actually intended to be an opportunity
to forecast election results by supernatural methods. However, these
entries were not rejected but were treated separately as non serious
ones. Such were 83 in number. Those with a serious attempt to predict
the results by any possible methods were the rest.
The evaluation
method was very simple; each right answer was awarded one mark. The
margin of error was allowed at ±10%. Though it was specified that ranges
were not acceptable, they too were taken into account if they lay within
this margin. The prize would be awarded to the entries which would have
at least 21 marks out of 25. The contestants were also asked to indicate
the method by which the predictions were made. This question got the
most interesting of the responses. Some relied on horoscopes, prayers,
insight. One stated that he had a special method of touching water while
asking the questions and would give the answers by the vibrations. Another
stated that he had prayed for 2 hours to Allah before writing down the
answers. One had cast the horoscope of the state of Karnataka and had
come to his conclusions all of which unfortunately were false and he
could get no marks! Another from Mandya had sent his entry based on
his experience in politics as his wife happened to be a vice chair person
of a village panchayath.
The highest
marks were obtained by non astrologers who relied upon the newspaper
forecasts and the TV channel exit polls to come to their conclusions. Ms.Sujatha from Dharwar got the highest number of right answers that
is 9 out of 25. However this falls short by less than 50% of the required
number of right answers to be eligible for the award. Her predictions
were based on the past performances of the parties and the candidates.
Similarly the two entries which were awarded 8 marks each were based
on factors other than the supernatural! Only one of them admits that
he had checked the predictions of the astrologers along with all the
surveys conducted by the media.
By contrast
most of those who relied upon their extra sensory powers of prediction
did miserably. The highest number of right answers was 4 out of 25 and
most of them got 2 or 3 marks because of their political leanings towards
the Bharathiya Janatha Party! This party seemed to have the maximum
support among the astrologers as well as the others. Among those who
got zeros who were about 30 in number all predicted a win for a non
BJP party. The same was the case with those who had 1 mark only. The
final results were as follows for the whole group without classifying
the senders into categories:
33 - zero, 18-one, 42
- two, 19- three, 15- four, 6 – five , 4- six, two got eight answers
right while one got nine correct.
We regret
that it is not possible to contact the individuals who have sent their
entries and request them to check the copies of their entries with the
results available in the media. My Rs. 1,000,000 remains with me to
be the award for predicting the results of the next election!
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