Opinion
poll in India is being practiced for more than a decade and there are several
agencies like CSDS, CVoter and several news channels conduct opinion poll.
People follow opinion polls and as seen before, most of the times, opinion
polls are correct. CSDS were absolutely correct on 16 occasions, roughly
correct on 7 occasions and wrong on 4 occasions.Although sometimes, opinion
polls are misconducted as experts says it may sometimes go off the mark as
given the size of India and the importance of the local leaders, it is
difficult to predict a clear winner.
In the recent
scenario and a sting operation named ‘Operation Prime Minister’ lead by ‘News
Express’ which revealed that a
number of polling agencies were involved in malpractices such as juggling with
the statistics and results. CVoter,
the polling agency exposed in this sting operation lost its contract with the India Today group. The sting operation exposed 11
agencies relaying opinion polls to the media. Well known faces of leading
agencies were caught on hidden camera admitting that for many years they have
been manipulating the results at the instance of political parties, and show a
particular party in favorable position for a price.Explaining how the results
are tweaked to project a particular party, 'Operation Prime Minister', quotes
one saying how "3 per cent margin of error is changed to 5 per cent"
and "10 seats increased to 18" to suit the party paying the money.
Thus due to this malpractice, people often get manipulated by opinion polls.
Congress spokesperson ShaktisinhGohil called
the opinion polls a "racket", "farce" and
"manipulated". and general secretary,
Digvijaya Singh, said: “Opinion polls have become a joke. They should be
completely banned. Considering the number of complaints I have received,
everyone is paying money and conducting a survey. No one is questioning the
authenticity of these polls.”
The Election Commission of India (EC) has started probing
the authenticity of opinion polls after the sting operation and opinion polls are not allowed 48 hours prior to voting.
During interactions with some voters,
many said that the ban on opinion poll was a correct decision and few said that
there should not be a ban as it helps then to decide whom they will cast their
vote.
Opinion polls are
purely statistical analysis using both inductive and deductive methods of
reasoning to find out probable the only thing matters is the accuracy of the
samples and the scale at which they are carried out. However, if different
surveys show the same result, then there can be no sign of manipulation. For
elections of 2014, opinion polls had been carried out earlier before the ban by
many agencies, BJP led NDA is leading. In the latest poll by ABP-Neilsen, BJP
is leading with 33% followed by UPA with 26%.
Modi is still the most popular candidate
for PM post with 54% popularity graph and regional parties like TMC,AIDMK, BJD
AND YSR will also play an important role in the government formation for
election.
Mainak Saha
M.Sc Media P.G 1
M.Sc Media P.G 1
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