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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 Art Becomes a Battlefield: Revisiting ‘The Train’

Updated: Feb 18, 2025

The Train

In the waning months of World War II as the Allies inch closer to Paris, an art-obsessed Nazi colonel embarks on a final, desperate act of cultural plunder. A locomotive brimming with stolen masterpieces - works by Renoir, Matisse, Degas, Picasso, Van Gogh - barrels toward Germany. Thus begins John Frankenheimer’s relentlessly riveting ‘The Train’ (1964).


The film, one of the last great action spectacles shot in stark black and white, is a rare bird - an ‘intellectual actioner’ that merges spectacle with substance.


War films have long been fixated on what makes a cause worth fighting for. Most stories in the genre hinge on the salvation of people, nations or ideologies, but ‘The Train’ is different. It wrestles with the idea that a country’s identity is not only its people but also its art. Yet it does not glorify this ideal without question.


Burt Lancaster, in a performance as rugged as the steel tracks his character fights to sabotage, plays French Resistance leader Labiche, a railwayman with no love for the art in question. Yet, he and his fellow partisans engage in a deadly chess match to thwart the train commandeered by the film’s most compelling figure - Nazi Colonel von Waldheim, played with mesmerizing menace by Paul Scofield.


Waldheim is no ordinary villain. Unlike the cartoonish Nazi brutes of WW2 films, he is cultured, a man who speaks of art with near-religious reverence. For him, the paintings are the essence of civilization itself. His obsession makes him dangerous, but also strangely tragic.


The hardened Labiche is deeply sceptical of the notion that culture is worth more than a man’s life. But as the film unfolds, his actions betray his cynicism. He begins derailing the train’s journey, engaging in a lethal war of wits with von Waldheim. Labiche, for all his pragmatism, cannot bring himself to let the Nazis abscond with the “soul of France.”


Frankenheimer, who took over after Lancaster fired the original director Arthur Penn for making the film ‘too intellectual,’ crafts a masterpiece of tension and realism. The train sequences, filmed with real locomotives, are breathtaking.


François Truffaut once remarke d that war films in black and white feel more authentic, and here, cinematographer Jean Tournier delivers stunning compositions reinforcing the film’s realism. The deep shadows and stark contrasts recall war photography, lending an almost documentary-like immediacy.


Frankenheimer’s dynamic camerawork heightens the film’s relentless momentum. One of the most jaw-dropping sequences - a real train derailment wherein a train loaded with Nazi troops collides with another at full speed - is a visceral reminder of an era when action cinema was built on precision and ingenuity rather than digital trickery.


Beyond the action, there are moments of quiet devastation, none more affecting than Michel Simon’s poignant performance as ‘Papa Boulle,’ the aging railway worker caught in the resistance’s deadly game. Simon, a legendary French actor, imbues Boulle with warmth and weary dignity. In a single, heartbreaking moment, when he naïvely assumes he can outwit the Nazis only to meet a cruel fate, Simon captures the human cost of war.


Lancaster, who performed many of his own stunts, brings a raw physicality to the role. Maurice Jarre’s percussive score adds to the film’s sense of urgency.


The 1960s were a golden era for World War II cinema. Big-budget ‘caper’ epics like ‘The Guns of Navarone’ (1961), ‘The Dirty Dozen’ (1967) and ‘Where Eagles Dare’ (1968) delivered slam-bang action while more cerebral thrillers like ‘The Counterfeit Traitor’ (1962) and ‘The Night of the Generals’ (1967) examined war’s ethical complexities. ‘The Train’ straddles both worlds, delivering heart-pounding thrills while posing difficult questions.


Yet, for all its action, The Train is ultimately a film about values. In a world where art is often dismissed as secondary to survival, its central dilemma remains eerily relevant today. In the film’s haunting final shot, as Labiche’s silent, limping figure walks away from the dead bodies and the undisturbed art masterpieces, the uncomfortable question lingers: What, in the end, is truly worth saving?


Today, when so much action cinema is driven by CGI bombast, ‘The Train’ feels like an artifact from a lost age. It is a film about the fragility of culture, the cost of resistance and the uneasy choices war forces upon those caught in its grasp. It remains, in every sense, a must-watch.

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