The Election Commission has expressed its inability to impose a blanket ban on opinion polls.
Answering a question at a news conference here, Chief Election Commissioner V.S. Sampath said, “We never hesitate to use powers that we can. However, the issue of opinion polls is to be dealt with by the lawmakers. They have the legislative competence.”
Under the current law, the Election Commission has the powers to ban conduct of opinion polls only 48 hours prior to voting as the lawmakers are yet to take a call on a proposal by the Commission for a blanket ban on the exercise.
The issue of banning opinion polls has been in discussion for nearly a decade now. In 2004, the EC sought a provision in the law for prohibiting publishing and dissemin-ation of opinion poll results from the date of notification of an election. The EC had made this recommendation after political parties unanimously spoke in favour of such a move.
In November last year, an all-party meeting convened by the government on the EC proposal had spoken out against opinion polls. Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati, whose views were sought by the Law Ministry, had also supported this proposal.
Of the 15 national and State parties, which sent in their views on the issue, only the BJP was against any restriction on the “conduct or dissem-ination” of the results of opinion polls.
The BJP’s contention was that any such restriction would “fall in the realm of a restriction on the Fundamental Right to Freedom and Expression guaranteed under Article 19(1) (a) of the Constitution.”
