Letters: Pre-poll paradox

This refers to the editorial "Polls that mislead" (February 27). Pre-poll surveys serve only one useful purpose - keeping the morale of the party cadre and campaigners high, of course, of the party that "seems" to be winning. That may be the reason parties engineer favourable poll results through surveys. In fact, rather than the "fence sitters" veering towards the "winning" party, the supporters of the "losing" party rallying more strongly around their party is likely to be the more significant impact of the surveys. The only measure to be taken would be to make the survey agencies mandatorily qualify their conclusions prominently by saying, "The results should be taken with a bucketful of salt".

Kishor Kulkarni Mumbai

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