In a state as split down the middle as Gujarat, where they vote for either the Congress or the BJP, or the other way round over the last three or four elections, who are these “others”? Keshubhai Patel’s Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP), the new kid on the block. The former chief minister and the one hailed as the man who could help the Congress take on Narendra Modi.

At 10.35 am, as the anchor on Times Now reports that Keshubhai Patel himself is trailing, one wonders why he was taken as such a big shot — by the media and the Congress.

“Patel is riding high over the possible support of the Leuva Patel community and could influence at least 20 seats in the Saurashtra region. Known as ‘Bapa’, Keshubhai’s tours to counter Modi could not only hurt the BJP but also the Congress,” reported the Indian Express on December 19.

In a news report on December 13, whgen the first phase of polling took place, Mail Today, in a story headlined “Keshubhai Patel's party may play spoilsport for BJP in Saurashtra”, reported: “Political pundits had relegated the GPP to the margins of the state polity until BJP MP Navjot Singh Sidhu called the Patel patriarch anti-national at a public meeting in Visavadar recently. Sidhu's remark, which left many in Gujarat BJP left-faced, seems to have hurt the Patel community deeply. "This is a disaster for the BJP and its impact is only getting magnified by the days as the poll date draws close," says a senior BJP leader from the region. "For all practical purposes, this may decimate the party in this area.”

These are just two reports but that’s the line of most analysts took. While Keshubhai might win by the time the last vote is counted in his constituency, and while the GPP might have polled about 10 percent votes by the end of the day and by that logic might have stopped a bigger BJP sweep, he has not moved an inch an as the leader of an independent party, and thus the questions remain.

Here are 4 reasons why most analysts got it wrong:

1. Hype: We Indians cannot live far off the thrill brought forth by the new kid on the block syndrome. It’s in our psyche to fall for the excitement of the ‘outsider’ factor — be it Bollywood films or elections (the West Bengal media bought into the Mamata Banerjee factor for years, election after election, before 2011). And we all fell for it — hook, line and sinker.

2. David vs Goliath cliché: Let’s face it, we again love that. Where’s life without the small man taking on the big one? Who doesn’t like drama, and that, too, masala maar ke! It’s another matter that the Congress might have done better by focussing on its strengths — espousing genuine ‘secularism’, pro-poor arithmetic and harping on the demagogic/despotic nature of Modi and his administration — rather than depending on Keshubhai to bring it some seats and luck.

3. Bring down the big boot: Carrying on from the earlier one, like we love the small man to win big, we also love the disgrace faced by the big man. Modi may be good, may even be god for some, but is he good enough to carry on? Nah, like most analysts propped up the anarchist Mamata in Bengal to beat the Left front ‘jackboot’, the same line of thought acted here: If Modi has to be brought down, it’s got to be the insider turned outsider aligned with the Congress.

4. Analyse with ease: We Indians are all analysts — we love to analyse the good spell of a bad monsoon, why Obama should or should not crack down on gun laws (matters little that firearms, and not countrymade weapons that are as easily available in the hinterland as chewing gum, aren’t a novelty for us), and surmising Sachin Tendulkar’s lack of hand-eye coordination is a national game. We also love to examine trends: the number of people attending a rally by Sonia vs one by Modi vs a one by Keshubhai, the ‘mood’ in those rallies, the polling day crowd, the prevalent ‘mood’ in that crowd, whether people were wearing their Sunday best on poll day (could be good for the incumbent) or the men did not shave that morning (bad for the incumbent?), the number of people who voted in the first four hours (must be good for the incumbent) against those who “thronged the polling booths” in the last four hour (anti-incumbency trend?)... By nature, we are all trend-spotters.

The problem is, trends do not add up in most cases because by our very nature we also love the surprise element. So we love to surprise the trend-spotters by proving them wrong. And going by that logic, Keshubhai Patel won’t really be surprised as the counting carries on and the heat escalates on a nicely sunny winter day.