The Political parties in India have been wary of Opinion Polls.
They have been making noises about the inaccuracy of these Opinion Polls, their neutrality and the fact that these Polls are ‘bought; depends n who is reported to be winning.
Now, in 2013, this has come out in the open with the ruling Congress party asking the Election Commission of India to ban these on the eve of elections.
The reasons advanced are.
1. Opinion Polls are unscientific.
If they are unscientific, then why bother about them?
If they are scientific,which I am sure, is not the case,how many of our people are scientific in choosing the right candidate?
None of the elected would have been elected if people reason out .
2.These Polls influence the Public Opinion.
Democracy is about communication and transparency.
Information is meant to be shared . analysed and a decision arrived at.
If Publication of information is to be banned, then Ministry of Information and broadcasting is to be dismantled and the Publication of Government’s achievements(?) in the media has to be stopped.
If we apply this yardstick, no party should even release the Election manifesto for it would influence the Voters!
3.Opinion Polls are bought.
True,
It is not as though one party can not do this.
Especially the Congress Party!,
If the party allocates even .0001% of the Money they have stolen through various scams, like The 2G,ISRO,Helicopter,CWG, Maharashtra Irrigation,Mining, Thorium, it would be more than sufficient to run Opinion Polls to their advantage!
If anything is to be banned it is the election Manifestos of the parties, for the the most unscientific, outright lies and are made with the intention of cheating.
Story:
BJP slammed Congress for demanding a ban on the mood-tracking exercises ahead of the coming round of assembly polls and in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha election, saying that Congress’s stance militated against right to freedom of expression and reflected its fear of an impending setback.
Parties split over ban demand
The Congress hastily clarified that it had merely responded to a question from the Election Commission (EC), which had sought the opinion of all parties. Political parties themselves seemed to be split over the issue.
While BSP supported a ban on surveys, CPM opposed it but demanded that the findings of surveys should not be released after the election process had started.
AAP, like BJP, said gagging the pollsters would be unconstitutional, but demanded more transparency in the way these exercises are conducted.
The varied response showed the continued misgivings of political parties about efforts to sound out the public mood despite their growing reliance on pollsters: a factor which had resulted in a unanimous demand in 2004 for ban on the publication of findings of polls until the last vote had been cast. ..
Congress leader Digvijaya Singh today slammed the opinion polls that have showed Congress losing the elections, calling it a mockery of democracy. In an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN, he said, “They (opinion polls) should be trashed. I would like to know the scientific process that is employed by the agencies conducting these polls.” He had always opposed opinion polls, he said.
He also said that these surveys, resting on a sample size of a few thousand, are not representative of public opinion. “Are you not opening the doors for criticism? Even the public is criticising opinion polls and pre-poll surveys right now. In a country of over 100 crores, you are only taking in the sample size of about a few thousand,” he added. In a country where news agencies and TV channels are supposed to be sacrosanct you should be careful about what you are showing, he said. Speaking of Yogendra Yadav, he said, “I have had great regard for psephologist Yogendra Yadav. But now he has joined the Aam Aadmi Party and he is claiming from his findings that AAP is forming the government.” However, the fact remains that these opinion polls have showed the Congress performing miserable and therefore thus could be a Congress backlash. However, Digvijaya Singh felt that these surveys could be botched by agencies for money.
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