All join hands for ban on opinion polls but EC has already burnt its fingers

Unless, as some officials indicated, it takes the extraordinary step of asking the Government to take recourse to an ordinance. But this is highly unlikely given the impropriety of an ordinance by a government in the run-up to elections.

For, the EC was already forced to beat a retreat before the last Lok Sabha elections when the SC expressed serious doubts about the constitutional validity of its ‘‘guidelines’’ on opinion and exit polls.

The EC was unable to explain how it would enforce any restriction on the media in the absence of any statutory sanction.

Cornered by the judges, the EC, in fact, withdrew its guidelines on September 14, 1999, even while the election process was on. So there were no restrictions on opinion and exit polls during the last Lok Sabha elections in September-October ’99.

But in the earlier election in Feb-March 1998, the EC for the first and only time had its way. Media organisations had challenged the EC then as well but the SC on that occasion posted the matter for regular hearing only after the poll date.

It was in the run-up to the 1998 election that the EC issued its guidelines which incidentally allowed opinion polls to be conducted subject to the restriction that its results should not be declared during the 40 hours preceding the actual polls when no campaigning is permitted.

As for the exit polls, the EC’s guidelines said that its results should be declared only after the last phase of polling.

The EC’s guidelines followed an all-party meeting much like the one called today by it. The outcome of the meeting held in December, 1997, was also similar as almost all the parties came out against opinion polls and exit polls.

Congress leader Kapil Sibal said: ‘‘It is not necessary for the EC to go the Supreme Court…It is a serious issue, the opinion polls are becoming opinion making polls.’’

Coming out of the meeting, BJP’s Vijay Kumar Malhotra said that though his party was not against opinion polls, ‘‘we all agreed that exit polls should not be telecast or printed before the last phase of the elections.’’

Reiterating Sibal’s point, CPI’s D Raja and CPI-M’s Nilotpal Basu said that ‘‘the opinion polls are being used for political propaganda.’’

On the question of surrogate ads, CEC T S Krishnamurthy reminded political parties to refrain from personalised attacks. While the Left suggested the need for restraint, the Congress and the BJP, indirectly involved in mudslinging through surrogate ads, were said to have been silent.

On political ads, the Left Parties asked the EC to keep in mind that the allowing political ad will mean increasing the role of money-power in the elections. ‘‘The parties which represent the poor and marginalised sections of the population will never have a level playing ground, if political advertisement on television is allowed by the EC,’’ Raja said.