The CEO of Doordarshan News, the only government channel in India (other than NDTV) has written a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner of India, requesting him to postpone the election results that are due to be delivered on the 8th of December till the time Doordarshan is ready with its exit poll analysis.

One officer who helped collect the data said, “Look, we are all government servants here. How could we start unless the orders are filed and signed by our officers? Still, we have been very fast despite the tortuous logistics: data collation from field, data entry at the central office, then the sanctioning letter travelling from peon to babu to steno to secretary that took over three weeks. Then there’s the tyranny of distance. Officers from Durg in Chhattisgarh were asked to take the opinion of pollsters of Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan; and if that was not enough they had mistakenly carried with them the details of voters from Guna in MP. However, we still proceeded as the format for capturing responses did not have a field for recording respondent’s location.”

“I then realized I have no vehicle to go to various localities, as the official Govt jeep was being used in the wedding of a senior officer’s daughter. Finally, I filled all the survey forms myself, and then stamped, sealed and faxed the files to the Prasar Bharati office. Till this point of time, there was no delay even by Govt standards.”

In the main office in New Delhi, senior bureaucrats gathered to consolidate and analyze the data. After hours of meetings, tons of biscuits and gallons of tea, when they finally finished, and prepared the file to be sent to the DD office for telecasting, there was a goof up by the peon who mistakenly carried the Coal gate files for broadcasting. Worse still, the results of the ongoing investigations of the missing coal files were broadcast on the national network. Fortunately for the UPA government, no one noticed since no one watches Doordarshan anymore.

A hunt for the missing ‘Exit Poll’ file has meanwhile started, and is not likely to conclude anytime soon. Therefore, the officials have started gathering data again after consuming another gallon of tea. The entire process is expected to take a similar length of time, hence the request. A DD news official asserted the legality of the move saying, “It is mandatory to hold elections every five years, but nowhere is it mentioned in the Constitution that it is also mandatory to declare its results as well.”