Predict Lok Sabha results and win Rs 25 lakh!

Putting astrologers to test, a Kolkata-based non-governmental organisation has promised a reward of Rs 25 lakh to any soothsayer who predicts the result of Lok Sabha polls before counting begins on Saturday.

"We have put two questions before them. First, they have to foretell exactly how many seats will be acquired by major political parties. Secondly, they have to predict the margin of victory or loss of big leaders like Sonia Gandhi, L K Advani, Mamata Banerjee, Lalu Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan," said Prabir Ghosh, chief of the Science and Rationalists Association of India.

However, no astrologer has come forward to accept his challenge so far, he said while sounding confident that none would ever approach him.

"It is because they knew they are not going to win as their predictions are always wrong," Ghosh claimed, while asserting that astrology was 'unscientific' and "can never predict anything correctly".

SRAI was established in 1985 to fight superstition, godmen and astrologers.

He claimed that even in the past, more than a thousand astrologers had publicly lost the challenge after being invited by him to predict the future.

"At least in Kolkata, I don't think there is an astrologer, whose effectiveness I have not proved to be zero," the 64-year-old crusader against soothsayers and godmen told PTI.

"We would close down our NGO and stop all our activities against them, if they prove us wrong this time," he said, while admitting that his NGO does not have Rs 25 lakh it has announced as prize money.

"If ever we need that much money, our well-wishers and supporters have promised to help us out," he added.