Political hypocrisy is in full bloom in India. The reignited controversy over an Election Commission initiative to ban opinion polls has once again exposed the nation to the stark reality of diminishing morality in politics.

While citizens have been suffering from endless worries about the way some politicians use empty rhetoric to cover up their real motives, here we have the entire class exploiting the innocence of voters with smiling faces. The manner in which political parties in India are bickering over the question of banning pre-poll surveys after having united previously in support of the Election Commission explains exactly why democracy is often described as hypocrisy without limitation.

In 2009, political parties of all hues unanimously supported the amendment to Representation of People Act, 1951 for legally prohibiting conduction, publication and telecast of exit polls to insulate the electorate from any prejudicial effect. The union cabinet had at that point made up its mind to impose an embargo on opinion polls at the earliest possible opportunity and all political parties were supportive of such measures.

In fact, all politicians repeatedly pledged to endorse any government move of outlawing opinion polls even though the Supreme Court had termed such a ban as unconstitutional. It would indeed be a travesty of justice if the apex court continues to show leniency toward opinion polls, having uphold the voter’s “right to privacy” through a path-breaking judgment on introducing a button in the electronic voting machine for rejecting all candidates in poll fray.

Allowing the media to run umpteen numbers of pre-poll surveys for ascertaining the mood of the people prior to actual voting is in itself a violation of the secret-ballot system and democratic rights envisioned by the constitution framers. Moreover, being a product of research, opinion polls are bound to be distorted one way or the other.

No one can guarantee that such endeavors will not be manipulated since organizations conducting opinion polls and those commissioning them inevitably possess ideological slants as they function in a democracy.

A biased conductor with vested interest and affiliation can easily mold the entire process by focusing on particular target groups as well as framing skewed questions to elicit premeditated results. Many experts believe that the Indian voters, being inherently conservative, have foxed surveyors frequently as they doubted the motive of such intrusive queries. This explains why successive opinion poll results conducted prior to general elections in 2004 and 2009 fell flat on the face of those who commissioned it.

Some political analysts also were of the opinion that in failing to analyze the electorates’ priorities honestly, the pollsters had actually fallen prey to the manipulative powers of big operators and speculators.

Perhaps it is time that the judiciary ask some pertinent questions to the political parties who have till now flip-flopped between supporting opinion polls and favoring a complete ban on them only to ensure that the castle they build on thin airs to woo the electorate remains intact. Above all, no political party was willing to take the blame for publicly opposing opinion polls despite having knowledge about the deep-rooted lacunas embedded therein.

That is precisely the reason why the Congress-led UPA government’s prevarication over the Election Commission proposal of banning opinion polls continued till the time the very exercise put the ruling party at a risk of loosing popular support.

There cannot be any doubt whatsoever that the vast diversity of Indian society and its uniqueness makes it impossible for anybody to perfectly judge the sentiments of voters from the studios of television channels.

Neither is it possible for global financial institutions to accurately estimate the prognosis of any electoral battle. One would be curious to know the underlying motivating factors of media organizations, which allow their platforms to be used by interested parties for disseminating a particular agenda through commissioned pre-poll surveys.

Do the media believe in shaping electorate opinion subtly through imposition of hypothetical figures instead of allowing the citizenry to make up their minds independently on the basis of their real life experience? Let us not forget that it is the fundamental right of citizens to vote whichever way they want. Squeezing them to take a certain stand is an immoral act that undermines the sanctity of the electoral process given the reality of surveys being frequently commissioned by political outfits and lobbyists representing big corporate who longs for the installation of a particular party in power.

This also amounts to questioning the merit of voters in a democratic polity howsoever less literate they might be. Unfortunately, this is the way Indian democracy is functioning presently wherein booth-capturing has been replaced by mind-capturing to sway election results. Surely, India’s first pollster Eric da Costa will turn over in grave at the sight of this ethical degeneration griping his trade gradually.

Will our psephologists, a vast majority of whom have been lured into politics possibly as a quid-pro-quo, acknowledge that their findings have got transformed into a tool of spin in almost all cases? Is it not a fact that India’s heterogeneity, sheer depth, multiplicity of political outfits, influence of caste, creed on voting pattern and the unique psyche of voters make it impossible for any market research organization to give an unerring pre-poll forecast? Advance poll surveys are therefore at the end of the day nothing but a ploy to confuse the electorate and encourage them to see politics through the prism of a particular ideology.

• Seema Sengupta is a Kolkata-based journalist and columnist.

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