India: New Law to Ban Exit Poll Survey Results Till Polls are Over

by Santosh Kumar Agarwal    October 08, 2008

To allow voters to cast their votes without being influenced by the results of exit poll surveys after one phase of polling, conducted by various media and other institutions, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday (8^th Oct’08) decided to amend the Representation of the Peoples Act, so that exit poll results could only be published after the polls are completed.

Briefing the press after the cabinet meeting Finance minister P.Chidambaram said the restriction on dissemination of results of exit poll conducted during elections to Lokshabha (lower house of Parliament) and Bidhansabha (state legislatures), would enable voters to vote without being influenced by the exit poll projections after one phase of voting is over and other phases yet to be completed.

A bill to carry out the changes, would be introduced in the next session of Parliament beginning 17^th October

In a country like India poll results are some times gets influenced by exit poll results and a debate was going on for quite some times over restricting exit polls. In many cases the exit poll results does not match anywhere the final results and it is also alleged that political parties and vested interests fix the exit polls.

So, in my opinion it is a very good step and most people in India would welcome it. However pre-poll surveys would not be affected by this change in law and pre-poll projections are likely to continue as usual.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

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