'You can see it when you meet them. The smiles they give you are enough of an indicator,' explained Naik. The one, who smiles at you is someone who is going to or has voted for you, according to him.
In reality, neither any political party nor a candidate has anticipated the volume of voting before the election day.
Even the election campaigns organised by most of the political parties were lacklustre hardly evoking any popular response, which one is used to seeing in a typical vibrant Indian electioneering "tamasha".
'It was one of the most unattractive campaign. Its not that we did not try getting people to come and participate. The popular response just wasn't there. And it was the case with all parties,' said a campaign manager of the BJP on the condition of anonymity.
For the record, the BJP trumped the Congress as well as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as far as organisation and management of the pre-poll campaign is concerned.
But the huge contradiction between the lack of excitement generated during the election campaign and the tremendous, record-breaking voter response is one of the key reasons why political parties as well as journalists have begun to take the silent voter seriously in these polls.
A senior editor at a local cable news channel Ashley do Rosario claimed that the "silent voter" phenomenon has added a touch of unpredictability to the election and has put the fear of the devil in the top four candidates, two each from the Congress and the BJP, especially when there appeared to be no clear winners in the lot.
