We did not hear the Congress complain when most surveys predicted a victory for the party in the Assembly election held recently in Karnataka. The party didn’t question opinion polls which said it would win in Punjab
let us assume that the Election Commission of India decides to play along with the Congress and bans opinion polls. let us also assume that the political class ‘respects’ the election panel’s decision and goes along with it despite the reservations that quite a few parties have on the issue. What happens if the media — both the print and the electronic versions — defies the Election Commission’s directive and goes ahead with the surveys on the premise that it is not obliged to follow the commission’s directive that militates against the right to free speechIJ It would lead to a legal technicality.
So, instead of getting mired in legal complications, let’s look at the real issue, which is that the Congress is rattled by the results of the various opinion polls that television channels have been conducting in recent months. The surveys show that the party is fast losing ground as the country approaches the 2014 lok Sabha election. Not just that, the Congress is shown to be faring badly in the Assembly elections that kick off later this month and will spill over in early December in the States of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Delhi.
Suddenly, therefore, the Congress has demonstrated remarkable alacrity in responding to the Election Commission’s move to ask political parties their views on opinion polls. The party believes that such surveys must be banned because they tend to ‘influence’ the voters ahead of an election. Before we get into the farce of this argument, we must not forget one small detail: It’s not just the Congress, and some other parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Janata Dal-United, that are opposed to poll surveys; even the UPA Government is against the exercise. This explains the position that the Attorney General of India has taken — a position, not unsurprisingly, perfectly in line with that of the Congress.
The Congress’s view is against an exercise that represents the media’s and the citizens’ constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech. It’s not just anti-people but also ethically and morally wrong. Is the letter that the party has sent to the poll panel, expressing its opposition to such surveys, not fit to be torn up and thrown awayIJ Perhaps the Congress’s conscious-keeper, Mr Rahul Gandhi, can explain. It would be helpful if he can also in the process enlighten the people on what has changed between October 2005 when his party had unequivocally backed opinion surveys and November 2013 when it wants them to be blacked out of the newsprint media and the television channels.
Maybe he does not have to take the trouble. We all know the answer. The Congress is upset because the surveys are predicting its defeat. It is worried that the more these opinion polls expose its continuing decline, the more it will help the ‘fence-sitting’ voters to take a clear position against
the Congress.
The party is caught in a cleft-stick. On the one hand, it trashes the surveys for being ‘inaccurate and unscientifically conducted’, and highlights where they have gone wrong. On the other hand, it claims that such opinion polls have the powers to influence the voters. If opinion surveys have gone wrong, it’s obvious that they have not been able to able to ‘influence’ the voters. Most surveys had predicted an NDA victory in 2004; that didn’t happen. This was one instance where the voters had an opinion that did not match the findings of the survey.
But in most other cases, opinion polls have been close to accuracy or even bang on target. The Congress must understand that poll surveys do not influence the voters. It’s more the other way round. Pollsters are influenced by the opinions they get from the voters on the ground, and that is reflected in their findings.
In any case, we didn’t hear the Congress complain when surveys had predicted a near landslide victory for the party in the recently held Assembly election in Karnataka. Nor did the party question the surveys which concluded that the Congress would win the Assembly election in Punjab. The latter prediction went wrong, with the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine retaining power in the State. The voters of Punjab clearly did not get influenced by the opinion surveys.
There ought to not have been even a debate on whether poll surveys should be banned. In a free and democratic society such as ours, where the right to speech is protected as a Fundamental Right in the Constitution, the matter should have been considered settled. If the Congress has a problem with the issues of methodology and transparency in the opinion polls, it must raise these specific points and ensure that poll pundits address them effectively. There cannot be an argument against the need for greater transparency and bigger sample sizes. Rather than being constructive, the Congress is in a mood to destruct.
Party general secretary Digvijaya Singh has called poll surveys a “joke” and added that pollsters in Madhya Pradesh, for instance, surveyed less than 2000 people out of a population of more than three crore people, and based on the opinion of this tiny fraction, projected a victory for the BJP. Does the Congress expect poll surveyors to reach out to all the three crore peopleIJ Nowhere in the world, where election surveys are done, is the sample size equal to that of the total voter population. Regardless of what the surveys say, Mr Singh, and other strong opponents of opinion polls, such as Mr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, know deep in their hearts that their party is in for a drubbing in the State.
Psephologists are trained in the art of deriving pre-poll opinions from a small sample size that approximately represents the sum total of a socio-cultural demography. In a heterogeneous society such as ours, and with a vast array of parties to choose from, the margin of error in opinion polls is always going to be more than in countries that have a simpler demographic structure. Given the situation, we must compliment poll survey agencies for getting the calculations right in most cases. They need to be encouraged to do better with the application of more effective tools, and not dissuaded from doing their job.
It would, however, be wrong to interpret the Congress’s new-found opposition to opinion polls in isolation. The party has a tradition of clamping down on the media whenever it is in a fix. One recent example of that is the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s anger with television channels because they telecast Mr Narendra Modi’s speech on August 15 and compared it with that of the Prime Minister’s address from the Red Fort. It reflects the intolerant attitude of the Congress.
In its ‘advisory’ dated October 21, the Ministry said, “The Prime Minister spoke from the ramparts of the Red Fort as the Prime Minister of the country and not as the leader of a political party. Therefore, on such a solemn day to put him in an artificial competition with anyone is not appropriate.”
The Congress must stop targeting the messenger and focus its energy on the message. That message is already grim enough for the party without the latter trying to worsen the condition.