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By:

Yogesh Kumar Goyal

19 April 2026 at 12:32:19 pm

The Exit Poll Mirage

While exit polls sketch a dramatic map of India’s electoral mood, the line between projection and verdict remains perilously thin. With the ballots across five politically pivotal arenas of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry falling silent until the results are announced on May 4, poll surveyors have filled the vacuum with exit poll numbers that excite, alarm and often mislead. These projections have already begun shaping narratives well before D-Day on May 4. If India’s...

The Exit Poll Mirage

While exit polls sketch a dramatic map of India’s electoral mood, the line between projection and verdict remains perilously thin. With the ballots across five politically pivotal arenas of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry falling silent until the results are announced on May 4, poll surveyors have filled the vacuum with exit poll numbers that excite, alarm and often mislead. These projections have already begun shaping narratives well before D-Day on May 4. If India’s electoral history offers any lesson, it is that exit polls illuminate trends, not truths. Bengal’s Brinkmanship Nowhere is the drama more intense than in West Bengal, arguably the most keenly watched contest among all five arenas. The contest for its 294 seats has long transcended the state’s borders, becoming a proxy for national ambition. Most exit polls now point to a striking possibility of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) majority, in some cases a commanding one. Such an outcome would mark a political earthquake. For decades, Bengal has resisted the BJP’s advances, its politics shaped instead by regional forces - first the Left Front, then Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC). Yet the arithmetic of the polls suggests that the BJP’s campaign built on organisational muscle and the promise of ‘parivartan’ (change) may have finally breached that wall. The TMC, meanwhile, appears to be grappling with anti-incumbency and persistent allegations of corruption. Still, one outlier poll suggests it could yet retain power, a reminder that Bengal’s electorate has a habit of confounding linear predictions. Here, more than anywhere else, the gap between projection and reality may prove widest. Steady Script If Bengal is volatile, the Assam outcome looks fairly settled. Across agencies, there is near unanimity that the BJP-led alliance is poised not just to retain power, but to do so comfortably. With the majority mark at 64 in the 126-member assembly, most estimates place the ruling coalition well above that threshold, in some cases approaching triple digits. The opposition Congress alliance, by contrast, appears stranded far behind. Under Himanta Biswa Sarma, the BJP has fused development rhetoric with a keen sense of identity politics, crafting a coalition that has proved resilient. A third consecutive term would underline the party’s deepening institutional hold over the state. Kerala, by contrast, may be returning to its old rhythm. For decades, the state has alternated power between the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) with metronomic regularity. The LDF broke that pattern in the last election, securing an unprecedented second term. Exit polls now suggest that experiment may be short-lived. Most projections place the UDF comfortably above the 71-seat majority mark in the 140-member assembly, with the LDF trailing significantly. If borne out, this would reaffirm Kerala’s instinctive resistance to prolonged incumbency. Governance records matter here, but so does a deeply ingrained political culture that treats alternation as a form of accountability. Familiar Duel? Tamil Nadu, long dominated by its Dravidian titans, shows little appetite for disruption as per most exit polls, which place M.K. Stalin’s DMK-led alliance above the halfway mark of 118 in the 234-seat assembly. Yet, some sections have suggested a possible upset could be staged by actor Vijay’s TVK, the wildcard in the Tamil Nadu battle. Most polls, however, are clear that the opposition AIADMK alliance, though competitive, seems unlikely to unseat the incumbent DMK. In Puducherry, the smallest of the five contests, the implications may nonetheless be outsized. Exit polls give the BJP-led alliance a clear majority in the 30-seat assembly, relegating the Congress-led bloc to a distant second. Numerically modest, the result would carry symbolic weight. A victory here would further entrench the BJP’s presence in the south, a region where it has historically struggled to gain ground. For all their allure, exit polls are imperfect instruments. They rest on limited samples, extrapolated across vast and diverse electorates. In a country where millions vote, the opinions of a few thousand can only approximate reality and often fail to capture its nuances. There is also the problem of the ‘silent voter’ - individuals who either conceal their preferences or shift them late. Recent elections have offered ample reminders. In states such as Haryana and Jharkhand, and even in Maharashtra where margins were misjudged, exit polls have erred, and sometimes dramatically sp. Moreover, the modern exit poll is as much a media event as a methodological exercise. Packaged with graphics, debates and breathless commentary, it fills the void between voting and counting with a sense of immediacy that may be more theatrical than analytical. That said, to dismiss them entirely would be too easy. Exit polls do serve a purpose in sketching broad contours, highlighting regional variations and offering clues about voter sentiment. For political parties, they are early signals and act as tentative guides for observers. Taken together, this cycle’s exit polls suggest a broad, if tentative, pattern of the BJP consolidating in the east and north-east, and opposition alliances regaining ground in parts of the south, and continuity prevailing in key states. But patterns are not outcomes and only counted votes confer legitimacy. It is only on May 4 when the sealed electronic voting machines will deliver that clarity. They will determine whether Bengal witnesses a political rupture or a resilient incumbent, whether Assam’s stability holds, whether Kerala’s pendulum swings back, and whether Tamil Nadu stays its course. (The writer is a senior journalist and political analyst. Views personel.)

The Changing Face of Sex Workers in Bollywood Cinema

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

The Changing Face of Sex Workers in Bollywood Cinema

Prostitution in Indian cinema has a hidden charisma, like a film that has been banned, and the banning becomes a tantalising invitation to the film that depicts or deals with prostitution. It is a part of everyday sexism. In constructing certain specific representations of women, it codes women as an object of the male gaze.

Chetna (1971), directed by the late B.R. Ishara, was perhaps the first Hindi film to represent a sex worker who stepped into the profession out of greed and was not embarrassed about it. But the guilt of having married one of her clients who fell in love with her proves her undoing. It was an extremely bold film for the time, encapsulating very bold cinematographic frames and a brilliant performance by Rehana Sultan.


Parched

Bijlee in Parched, directed by Leena Yadav, is part of a touring entertainment group that performs item numbers for the village men. She also sleeps with some of them in exchange for money. The owner of the company who pimps her gets a fair cut. She has a beautiful figure enough to set the men’s hormone levels rising. Additionally, she is a delightful woman who loves to return to the village to meet her friend Ranee, a young widow. She is not embarrassed about her job, flaunts her charms proudly, and gives courage to other women.

Bijlee is a sparkling beauty and crackles like fireworks with her naughty, teasing charm she veils her inner pain with. She throws up alternative ways of behaviour and thinking, changing female-prefixed abuses men generously use by substituting them with male prefixes and shouting these from the top of a hillock with her friends. Bijlee offers visions of freedom to Lajjo and Rani from the prison they are caged in. But simmering inside her is the pain of the trap that, for her, is a no-exit situation where love is as much a mirage as it is for Rani and Lajjo.


Akira

Maya in Akira is a high-class call girl. She is not ashamed of trading her body for money. She is strong and courageous enough to strike back when a corrupt and murderous cop blackmails her into offering her services for free. All because he set her free from being jailed once. She tries to avenge this wrong by capturing on video one of his corrupt dealings but is killed by the same cop and his team. Strangely, reviews of Akira do not even mention the way her character unfolds and the brilliance of her performance, who has no sad story to back up her being in the profession.


Badlapur

In Badlapur, Jhimli (Huma Qureshi) is portrayed as a confident sex worker who, despite her deep affection for Liak (Nawazuddin Siddique), remains committed to her profession. She ultimately becomes the mistress of a wealthy man, showcasing her assertive nature and lack of desire for marriage or settling down.

But underneath her flashy clothes and loud make-up, Jhimli is very fond of Liak, though he is a killer on the run. The only time we find her broken is when the hero rapes her with vengeance. Huma Quereshi as Jhimli gives an outstanding performance as a sex worker who is not embarrassed about her profession. There is an irony when placed next to a character who is a social worker who sleeps on the sly with men who she has business with. Jhimli comes across as a bold woman, in love with one of her clients but with no plans of marrying him or giving up her profession.

The prostitute, on celluloid as in real life, has her saleability in common. With other culturally prevalent representations of women such as the sacrificing or the ruthlessly selfish wife, new Indian filmmakers, men and women, have reinvented and created new codes of non-voyeuristic vision through the character of the prostitute in their films.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. Views personal.)

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