EC hopeful of ban on opinion polls post-notification

The Election Commission is hopeful that the government will agree to its proposal to ban opinion polls once election notification has been issued and would soon amend the rules in this regard.
The EC's hopes have come alive after the Attorney General backed its proposal for ban on publication or broadcast of opinion polls between announcement of election schedule and final phase of polling, sources said today.
Under the present rules, opinion polls are banned 48 hours prior to polls.
The Commission has been pursuing with the government the issue of banning both exit and opinion polls soon after the notification for any election is issued.

Government, however, allowed the exit polls to be banned till the end of polling but did not agree to its proposal for stopping opinion polls.
"As rightly pointed out by the EC, what is paramount is the necessity to have free and fair elections. One cannot disagree with the view of the EC that such opinion polls often tend to cause a prejudicial effect on the minds of the elector," Attorney General G E Vahanvati said in his opinion.

He said, "one must also take into consideration the view of the political parties at the meeting held on April 6, 2004 and the unanimous view expressed therein."

To support his view to ban opinion polls, he also pointed that the amendments incorporating restrictions in relation to exit polls have been in force for over three years "and there does not appear to be a challenge to this."
The ban, if imposed, would come ahead of assembly elections in the five states of Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram, which are due later this year.
The government's top law officer said he is of the opinion that there is no "real basis" to distinguish between opinion polls and exit polls since the exit polls have already been restricted.

The AG also referred to the legal opinions given by his predecessors Soli Sorabjee and later Milon K Banerjee on the issue.
While Sorabjee was of the view that restrictions in the form of prohibition of both exit and opinion polls was "unconstitutional", Banerjee said while freedom of expression was important it could be subject to reasonable restrictions for "greater public necessity to ensure free and fair elections" and therefore telecast of exit polls should only be allowed after the voting was completed in all phases.