Friday, 02 April , 2004, 17:11 Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa today flayed the recent opinion poll conducted by the Indian Express and NDTV, saying that it was one more in the long series of orchestrated exercises. 

Refusing to give credence to the poll survey, especially with regard to Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa, in a six-page statement, said like the previous surveys, this would also keep its unblemished prediction record of ''never been right''. 

She said the latest jointly-commissioned poll conducted by A C Nielsen, has come out with ''absurd results,'' predicting a paltry number of seats for the AIADMK-BJP alliance and a runaway victory for the Opposition. 

''This is true to the script written by pollsters and their backers before every election in Tamil Nadu. This script has invariably been proved wrong since they reveal a total lack of understanding of the lifeline of democracy --the great people of this great country who exercise their choices and mind independent of all the electoral arithmetic touted by the psephologists,'' she noted. 

Even seasoned psephologists have often admitted that their opinion polls have mostly been wrong in the case of Tamil Nadu, she pointed out. 

''Given the dubious track record of pollsters in predicting electoral results in Tamil Nadu, this latest survey, now trumpeted by the Opposition as a tonic to boost their flagging campaign, has to be dismissed outright,'' she said. 

Source: Sify News