Mangalore, May 07: Prof.Narendra Nayak, President Federation of Rationalist Association is willing to offer a cash reward of 10 lakh to self-proclaimed soothsayers and astrologers.
Nayak, who considers busting superstitions and blind faith as his life’s mission began challenging astrologers and their predictions about elections two decades ago. After every election, with predictions of hundreds of astrologers and soothsayers falling flat, Nayak got to keep the cash reward of Rs.10 lakh for himself. He mocks at past predictions and says exit polls and surveys are at least closer to truth.
Disappointed at the challenge being one-sided, Nayak had decided against the idea of challenging astrologers this time.
But when a state’s leading astrologer Shankar Hegde made claims to predict the election results accurately, he received the challenge.
Nayak offered to hand over a cheque of Rs.10 lakh (after deducting taxes as applicable under income Tax Act), if 19 out of the 20 results were proven right.
The prediction are to be made with an error margin of +5 per cent only. The prediction should not be expressed in ranges and can be published in media,”Nayak explains the conditions, he set for Hegde.
The astrologer should be accurate in his predictions on number of seats that would go to congress, BJP, JD(S), BSR congress, CPM and independents.
Hegde also has to get his prediction right on votes polled by Yogish Bhat (Mangalore south) H.Manjunath (Shikaripur), Shakuntala Shetty (Puttur), Shobha Karandlaje (Rajajinagar) Jagadish Shettar (Dharwad), G.Parameshwara (Koratagere) and K S Eshwarappa (Shimoga) and HD Kumaraswamy (Ramanagara).
The astrologer also predicts which party is likely to assume power after the counting of votes.
If Hedge’s predictions are proven correct, Nayak will hand over a cheque of Rs 10 lakh and make a public declaration on being totally wrong about astrology and thus believe it as an exact science, he said.
If Hegde fails to make predictions within the error margin, he should make a donation of Rs.1, 00,000 to my trust-“Aid without religion trust” and make a public statement that astrology is fraud and that he will stop practicing it, he added.
