YPOST

Opinion Polls: The truth or a farce?

It is that time of the year again, when everyone wants to have an opinion on everyone! Yes indeed, we are talking about the General Elections. How ironical it is, that this year round the two magnum opuses of the Indian Subcontinent – The Indian Premier League and the General Elections are occurring concurrently !! The two are not quite different actually. As and when a match is taking place, everyone loves to declare their favourites much before the last ball is bowled, similarly the favourites for the elections too are declared before the last ballot is cast. However, the question is how accurate are these opinion polls, better yet how ethical?           

In a country like ours, where the awareness levels are an all time low, and voters vote based on petty issues like regionalism, religious sentiments, freebies promised, etc. opinion polls play the role of a game changer. These polls wield the power to sway the masses, change the tide and how! Once the information is out there, it travels at a speed faster than light, and has the power to ‘convert’ or ‘influence’ anyone vulnerable enough to give it a chance.

The feeling associated with going with the opinion polls is that the ‘majority wins’, i.e. majority is always right, which need not always be correct. This is when the credibility of these opinion polls comes into question.  In order to conduct a fair opinion poll, upon a sensitive topic like the above to have the right sample for the poll is absolutely imperative. The sample must be a rightful representation of the population of the entire country, such that the sentiments of each and every part of India may be captured through it. If such a sample is acquired, the opinion polls may well be indicative of the election results to follow. However, this is not the case.

Today, in the struggle to ‘break’ a news, and ‘break’ it first, news channels are more keen on generating the most sensational headline rather than authentic. Owing to which, samples are tweaked with, polls tampered and misrepresentation follows. In a democracy, such false information being aired to an entire nation can be a recipe for disaster for all its citizens.

According to Aastha Fogla “This is the first time i am going to caste a vote as I was in USA for my college so for a first time voter I kept a close track on the opinion polls, but soon I realised different news channels show different statistics so now i need to go with my gut instinct.”

Solution to the problem – are opinion polls relevant? Of course they are, but only genuine polls which can be testified. Opinion polls too form a part of media, and it is the role of the media to inform and help build the opinion of the masses. However, it is also the moral obligation of the media to present facts, and true information to the world at large. Therefore, with transparent practices while preparing the sample and certain moral discretion on part of the news channels, the opinion polls can indeed build up to a promising trailer, to a multistarrer- blockbuster release at the box office called the “general elections”.

 Roli Vajpeyi

M.Sc Media P.G 1