Proposed ban on Opinion and Exit Polls

India's political parties have called for a ban on opinion polls ahead of general elections in April and May. Consensus was arrived at saying that the opinion polls should be banned from the first day of notification. In the case of exit polls, the parties felt that the results should not be announced before 5 pm on May 10, the last phase of the Lok Sabha polls.

While the Congress has dubbed opinion polls as unfair;, the RJD went to the extent of demanding that even astrological predictions should not be published or telecast. But analysts say the commission may find it difficult to ban the polls legally.

In 1999 the Supreme Court ruled in favour of an Indian newspaper which challenged a similar order. The court declared the order had been "devoid of merit" and said the commission had no powers to issue such orders. The Supreme Court had rudely reminded the Commission that a consensus at an all-party meeting did not provide the required legal sanction. The Commission is unlikely to go ahead with a ban this time without any legal protection. Hence the Government's reported move to enact an ordinance empowering the Commission.

The position that opinion and exit polls are bad for our democracy rests on the following:

1. Media-driven opinion polls and forecasts based on these are widely noted by the public at large.
2. These polls therefore influence the process by which people make up their mind about who to vote for.
3. This influence is either illegitimate, for most of the forecasts are not correct, or undesirable anyway as it adversely affects the level-playing ground in politics.

Not everyone makes all the three arguments. And not every critic of the impact of opinion polls questions the professional integrity of the pollsters. Yet all these are arguments are widely deployed.

Some countries where Polls are allowed freely : Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Ireland.

Some countries where there are embargoes on Exit/ Opinion Polls: China, South Korea, and Mexico.

The fundamental question of the Constitution is whether such a law, if enacted, would not violate the fundamental right to freedom of expression. There is indeed a strong argument here and this may well be a clincher in the legal battle that is bound to follow any attempt to ban opinion polls.