Delhi elections: Media should not be allowed to run opinion polls

In the middle of the Lok Sabha 2014 elections, there were two opinion polls in print and electronic media. Coming between the third and fourth phase of a high-stake, high-decibel election, these opinion polls not only violated an unwritten code that the media and survey agencies had decided to impose upon themselves when the issue of exit/opinion polls went from the Supreme Court to Parliament, they also showed a dangerous trend of big PR giants subverting the election process by masquerading exit polls as opinion polls.

The data used by the agency in the so-called opinion polls from areas that had already gone to polls could only be termed as exit poll. Apart from an illegality, this was also a big anomaly. The data of the exit poll from western UP was taken to arrive at a conclusion for the rest of the state. Likewise, data of western Odisha, which is hardly representative of the rest of the state, was publicised in a bid to influence the rest of the state which was yet to go to polls. To the common viewer, the demographic determinants and other local variants would neither be clear nor relevant. He or she was made to believe in the existence of a wave that may or may not have existed at that point.

Even if we dismiss the fact that the senior director of a PR agency which was handling the account of the BJP was CEO of this survey agency at one point in his career, as a convenient coincidence, broadcasting opinion polls for states that go to polls in multiple phases is both illegal and unethical.

It shows that these so called opinion polls are designed not to inform, but to influence.

Surveys by themselves may not always show the reality. They are now being used for another very dubious purpose, to colour the reality. Going by Gallup's final pre-election poll result in 2012, Mitt Romney is the serving US President. During the 2009 Indian general elections, in both pre and exit polls, the predicted figures were off the mark by 60-90 seats, an error in the range of 30-50 per cent. Based on pre-poll surveys, in the 2004 election, a popular media house gave the UPA 218 seats and the NDA, just 181. In fact, the same media house did a poll in December 1998 and predicted a huge victory for the UPA just nine months before the general election. In the 2013 Delhi Assembly elections too, many opinion polls were wide off the mark. Almost all of them had predicted that the BJP will win a simple majority in Delhi. AAP went a step ahead and made its own opinion poll results as its campaign theme, projecting 47 seats out of 70 in Delhi.

This time around, we see a plethora of "internal" and other surveys storming media space. AAP has again put out its own "internal" survey in its advertisements. The BJP can't be accused of planting its "internal" survey as such surveys are no more "leaked" or "planted", they are carried as regular legitimate news items.

For a political party, if the objective of a survey is to assess public mood, and devise an election strategy, it's a perfectly legitimate tool. For media houses too, in an election season opinion polls can increase TRPs. However, when a political party decides to go public with the findings-real or manufactured-the intention is no longer to assess public mood, but to steer it and generate perception of a wave. Some polls do come closer to the target. Even a broken clock shows the right time twice a day.

It is human nature to be influenced by the decisions and behaviour of one's peer group. A mature voter by now may have realised that poll predictions should be taken not with a pinch, but industrial quantity of salt, but the fact remains that such surveys, when broadcast by respectable media houses, have the power to impact impressionable and politically innocent voter.

The EC would do well to intervene and question the dissemination of such disinformation. We do not allow a company sell a product supported by dubious, unverifiable claims. In fact Drugs and Magic Remedies Act prohibits advertisements of miracle cures. Why then should the media be allowed to run an internal survey of a political party? Questions about the credentials of those engaged in the survey and also who commissioned the survey are critical to the credibility of the survey itself.

Aren't we well within our rights to insist on transparency and neutrality before an opinion poll is broadcast?

Singapore has banned such polls altogether. The UK has the British Polling Council (BPC) that ensures that the general public are provided adequate basis to judge the reliability and validity of poll results.Some have argued that pre-poll surveys are not regulated in most parts of the world?

For that matter sex determination tests on unborn babies are not prohibited in other countries, too. It is the peculiar circumstances a society or nation faces that necessitate the need for checks and balances.