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Exit polls harming country: BJP

By Our Special Correspondent

JAIPUR, APRIL 30. The Bharatiya Janata Party said today that the exit polls on the Lok Sabha elections were doing a great disservice to the nation by creating panic in the stock market and instability in the currency value. The party wanted the pollsters to withhold their observations till the end of the final polling date and felt that there should be a legislation in this regard.

"We are not yet asking for a ban on exit polls. However, we are convinced that the polls should come out with the predictions only after the completion of polling," the BJP president, Venkaiah Naidu, told presspersons here today. "Now there is no law to stop them. Once we return to power we will legislate on it," Mr. Naidu, who was here on his way to the Tonk Lok Sabha constituency, said.

"The market reaction to the predictions give an idea how the economy would respond when the BJP and its allies appear weakened. The poll predictions have made the economy suffer. The markets have crashed and the rupee value has come down and this is only a trailer," he said. "They have already started squabbling over the kursi. There are at least six candidates for the post of the Prime Minister. We have been saying it from the outset, it is Mr. Vajpayee versus a big question mark," he said.

Mr. Naidu said the projection of a hung Parliament was going to create panic in the financial circles. "Our plea is that the projections should be made in a more scientific manner."

"Unnecessarily an impression is created in which they(the Opposition) have started day dreaming," Mr.Naidu said pointing out that the exit poll predictions after first two rounds acted as oxygen to the Congress. "The Congress had first condemned the exit polls. Now they will have a problem when the real results come," he said.

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