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Obsessions die hard

It is unfortunate that the Election Commission has been unable to put its old obsessions and irrational fears behind it. Its blanket ban on publishing results of exit polls and opinion polls from 48 hours before voting till the end of the election smacks of illiberalism and is an unreasonable restriction on freedom of speech. The first such ban imposed by the poll panel was in 1998, which it defended with the patronising argument that such polls conducted when a multi-phase general election is on would distort electoral choice “in a poor and half-literate society having multi-party democracy.” But it was hastily forced to withdraw these guidelines for the 1999 election after the Supreme Court, in an oral observation, scathingly questioned the source of the EC’s power to regulate polls in this manner. The basis for the new order is another remark by the Supreme Court, in the course of hearing a lawsuit that seeks a ban on exit polls, to the effect that the EC was free to frame guidelines regulating such polls.

The fact that most political parties are in favour of such a ban and that a Bill to this effect is pending in Parliament should not cloud the basic question — does the argument that polls distort electoral behaviour when conducted during the electoral process really wash? There is no research that establishes such surveys significantly influence the way the electorate votes. But even if one were to concede that they could have some impact, what about the possible influence from other quarters? What about newspaper columnists who predict the victory of one party or another in the midst of the election? Or politicians and even astrologers? The EC’s act leads to the anomaly that during the period that the publication of opinion polls is banned, parties directly involved in the election are allowed to carry on door to door propaganda and mobilisation. It is also strange that the EC should have chosen to bypass the opinion of a former Attorney General that the rationale invoked for the ban is not a permissible ground for restriction on freedom of speech under Article 19 of the Constitution. Opinion and exit polls enrich our understanding of popular perceptions and how they shape the democratic process. While it is true that they can be manipulated, a credible poll would make it a point to publish information about who commissioned it, which agency conducted it, the sample size and other relevant methodological details. The Commission needs to focus its energies on making sure that every voter is allowed to exercise his or her franchise and that the elections are free and fair, rather than tilt at issues that have no bearing on the conduct of elections.

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