How A Wrong Key Press Startled The Nation

This is a secret I thought I would take to my grave. The nation may or may not want to know. But this story needs to be told. So here it goes.

Counting of votes had begun for the Union Parliamentary elections, which would last for three days. Millennials and members of Gen Z may not know it took that much time for all results to be declared. They may believe it or not – viewers in India then only had one option to check out election results – the state-owned Doordarshan (DD). India waited to watch the LIVE coverage on DD.

That year, the election special coverage was jointly produced with a private news production house – New Delhi Television (NDTV). It was my first experience in election programming on television and I was excited to play a small part in the mammoth logistical exercise to connect all of India LIVE. It required extensive planning and elaborate checking of video and audio signals coming into the main hub located at Asiad Village in New Delhi. DD’s technical staff worked tirelessly with the NDTV crew to make it happen.

I was assigned a role in the data entry team to feed the results coming to us via National Informatics Centre (NICNET).The data needed to be keyed into a software application which would reflect as graphics on the television screen. Each computer terminal at the Data Centre was assigned to a team of two – an NDTV staffer supervising an intern – for the seamless broadcast of election results. My partner was a former neighbour, a few years my junior at Stewart School, Cuttack. I was pleasantly surprised to meet him again.

In a single, momentary lapse of attention, he pressed the wrong key. The software application required the selection of Y or N key to denote leading, trailing, won, or lost. By mistake, his finger touched the wrong key. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a glaring error. As a result, the ticker at the bottom of the screen showed PV Narasimha Rao, the incumbent Prime Minister trailing from his constituency. I noticed the error as soon as it was made and quickly corrected it. The entire process of correction took half a minute before it reflected on air. But Dr Prannoy Roy who hosted the election special broadcast (along with the late Vinod Dua), had noticed it before the correction and brought the attention of his panel of guests and the entire nation to it.

This was BREAKING NEWS of the highest order. He announced it on air and India heard. Moments later, Dr Roy spotted the correction and told the viewers that there has been a mistake. The Prime Minister is leading, he said, not trailing, as pointed out a few seconds ago. When the mistake was rectified in a jiffy, it was clear that someone had erred in the Data Centre. Candidates don’t trail and then lead in less than a minute.

The boss at the Result Centre rushed into the data entry room, demanding to know who was responsible for it. Just as I was about to raise my hand, my associate held my arm and gestured not to mention his name. It was an honest error. He was visibly shaken. I had a second or two to decide. I kept quiet. He made no error before or after this incident. It was this solitary but significant one which spooked him out.

Being a movie buff, this incident reminded me of a scene in the 1982 Hindi film Shakti, the only one featuring two of India’s biggest superstars – the late Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan – together. In the film, Kulbhushan Kharbanda (KK), an aide of the villain, bails out Amitabh junior when his fellow goons are out to nab the young lad. It is the innocence and fear on the child’s face that touches KK’s heart, and he lets him go. I spotted pretty much the same facial expression in the intern and my heart melted.

When we wound up that night, I felt the need to cheer him up. I took him aside near the car parking area, put my arm around his shoulder and told him to forget about it. “It could have been worse, had the error reflected the PM has lost the election. Comparatively, it was a lesser error. Thank God for small mercies,” I said before we got into different cabs.

As a parting shot, I told him destiny had put him in a position where he could tell his parents when he reached home, and years later to his children, and grandchildren – how he startled an entire nation at the press of a button.