Clamouring for ban on opinion and exit polls What has motivated Election Commission, suddenly to seek the opinion of all political parties It certainly smells of being influenced by some interested parties. The Congress and JD(U) alone seem to openly expressing such an opinion The argument that the E.C governed by constitution is perfectly within its powers for conducting free and fair elections Election commission will take the final call no doubt, but when the truth is inconvenient, constitutional authorities are derided, and amendments are brought to negate such bold decisions. Is it a reasonable exercise to suppress free expression?
Countries like Germany, Ireland, Denmark ,Russia, Mexico, South Korea have no complaints against such polls. Opinion polls starting from 1824 are in existence, nearly for the last 190 years The Congress In July/October 2005 whole heartedly supported opinion polls. E.C. Then wanted legislation ,but the PIL was dismissed. Why then the Congress after 9 years is speaking in forked tongues now, sporting ban .Soli Sorabjee had opined that the ban is unconstitutional and the present A.G Vanwati is on record for not being consulted to day When Congress won in Assam, H.P .U.P .Uttarkhand, Karnataka, there were no such allegations against poll predictions .In 2006 during elections in West Bengal, the media was accused of being on payrolls Congress was decimated after emergency, but bounced back after that Do polls have the tendency of influencing voters? Then by those standards exposes, panel discussions, write ups, news coverage’s, manifestos, distribution of gifts, announcements of schemes on the eve of election, rallies ,meetings, banners, propaganda on news papers, media, can also be argued, as directly influencing, bribing voters. Where will the buck stop? Let the voters feel free to express their preferences and not impose undemocratic, unconstitutional restrictions, curbs on Media and its freedom to conduct, , publicise, broadcast balance conclusions The opinion polls are a legitimate exercise in a Democracy to gauze the trends in the minds of voters, accuracy, sample size, methods may be contested, but for those reasons alone the ban is not justified. Most of the polls predictions are found to be indicative of trends and found to be 95% accurate. It is said that scientifically conducted census report suffers an error of 2.3% and should it be discarded on that account ?The pols may differ in opinions expressed, but if the predictions are awry, why the political parties need to be under jitters? The issue is not accuracy, but freedom of expression .All polls are sample surveys limited in scope But if motives are attributed for false propaganda, action can be taken as per laws in force The truth is that the congress is fearful of the declining trends against its misrule, corruption and judgement or defeat of its political fortunes. To dub the results as misleading , arbitrary, concocted signals by motivated fixers is pathetic state of mind by the incumbent Govt and its allies The poor quality of polls can adversely affect the rating of media and casts serious aspersions on reliable poll agencies of repute of long standing.Congress is adopting double standards and inconsistencies from its stand in 2004 and 2013 and is fast losing grounds. If he validity of the polls are unreliable so much better for the political party confident of its strength ain stead of expressing pathological fear and further demanding ban Nelson Lopes Chinchinim
