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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.)

When a Mother Questions the Nation

In giving voice to a mother who understands her son’s rebellion too late, Mahasweta Devi transforms private grief into collective conscience.

This is the centenary year of Mahasweta Devi, remembered as a fearless chronicler of India’s marginalised communities who fused literature with activism. Through stories that unsettled conscience and demanded justice, she gave voice to Adivasis and the oppressed. One of her major works, Mother of 1084, remains a searing indictment of state violence, middle-class apathy, and the erasure of dissent in post-independence India. A deeply human narrative, it redefines motherhood as a moral and ethical awakening rather than a merely biological or sentimental role, set against the backdrop of the Naxalite movement of the 1970s.

 

It opens with chilling bureaucratic detachment. Brati Chatterjee, a young revolutionary killed in a police encounter, is reduced to an entry: corpse No. 1084. The title signals the novel’s central concern—the state dehumanises individuals by converting them into statistics, while society colludes in that erasure through silence and conformity. At the heart of the novel is Sujata Chatterjee, Brati’s mother, whose journey from complacent domesticity to painful awareness forms its emotional core. A passive figure in an affluent, patriarchal household, she lives in the shadow of her husband Dibyanath’s careerism and social ambition. Mahasweta deliberately makes Sujata an ordinary middle-class woman, making her transformation all the more powerful. The novel unfolds through memory and introspection rather than linear action.

 

On the tenth anniversary of Brati’s death, Sujata pieces together fragments of his life—his silences, withdrawal, and ideological commitments she failed to understand while he was alive. This retrospective structure sharpens one of the novel’s key themes: in a society unwilling to hear its youth, recognition comes only after they are silenced. Mahasweta’s portrayal of the urban middle class is unsparing. Dibyanath Chatterjee embodies the moral hollowness of a class obsessed with respectability and proximity to power. After Brati’s death, his concern is not grief but the social embarrassment it may cause. Through Dibyanath and his circle, the novel lays bare the chilling complicity of educated, successful citizens who benefit from the system while disavowing responsibility for its violence. The contrast between Dibyanath’s ambition and Brati’s idealism reveals a generational and ethical rupture at the heart of postcolonial India. One of the most striking aspects of Mother of 1084 is its refusal to romanticise revolutionary politics: Brati is no flawless martyr, and the Naxalite movement is never reduced to a simple moral absolute.


Mahasweta Devi focuses on the human cost of political struggle: broken families, silenced voices, and unacknowledged sacrifices. Brati’s friend Nandini provides a counterpoint to Sujata’s sheltered existence, giving voice to the rage and despair of a generation shaped by inequality and state repression.


Language and narrative technique are central to the novel’s impact. Mahasweta’s prose is stark, restrained, and unsentimental. Violence is never sensationalised; its horror lies in its normalisation. Police brutality, custodial killings, and surveillance appear to be routine mechanisms of governance. This restraint sharpens the novel’s political critique, forcing readers to confront the banality of oppression.

 

The symbolic power of the title resonates throughout the text. Sujata is not only Brati’s mother; she becomes the symbolic mother of all unnamed, unacknowledged victims reduced to numbers. Her awakening is both personal and political. By the end, her quiet refusal to participate in rituals of forgetfulness, family celebrations, and social pretences becomes a radical ethical stance. She cannot bring Brati back, but she can refuse to let his death be erased.


Sujata’s awakening also challenges patriarchal notions of motherhood as self-sacrifice without consciousness. Her grief becomes a form of resistance—an assertion of memory against enforced amnesia. Mahasweta thus links private emotion with public protest, suggesting that true political change begins with the courage to remember and mourn honestly.

 

The novel’s relevance has only deepened with time. In an era shaped by debates over dissent, nationalism, and state power, Mother of 1084 continues to speak with unsettling clarity. It asks enduring, uncomfortable questions: Who gets to be remembered? Whose deaths are mourned, and whose are filed away as numbers? What responsibilities do parents, citizens, and intellectuals bear in times of injustice?

 

As literary art, Mother of 1084 endures through emotional restraint, complex characterisation, and moral urgency. As a political text, it remains a powerful testimony to voices marginalised by both state and society. Mahasweta Devi offers no easy consolation—only a demand for remembrance, accountability, and empathy. By giving voice to a mother who understands her son’s rebellion too late, she transforms private grief into collective conscience. Mother of 1084 is not just about one death but a haunting reminder of countless lives lost to silence—and a call to resist that silence through memory and moral courage.

 

(The writer is an assistant professor of English literature. Views personal.)

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