AAP demands regulation of opinion polls

Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday took the opportunity thrown by a sting operation on opinion polls by a news channel to demand transparency in media and regulation of opinion polls. He will demand the Election Commission to take steps on the issue.

He, along with Yogendra Yadav and lawyer Prashant Bhushan, demanded that ownership pattern and political and corporate affiliation of the media should be made public. They demanded that annual statement of accounts of media houses should be made public.

He also demanded that the veracity of tapes of sting operation should be done by National Broadcasting Standard Authority (NBSA) and if any the tapes are found to be doctored the channel should be prosecuted. Otherwise, criminal investigations should be initiated against whom allegations have been made in the tapes.

An agitated Kejriwal who is facing criticism for his comments against media at a Rally in Rohtak last Saturday came heavily on said there should be an investigations into how much have been distributed by political parties on opinion polls.

“After how can they conduct a survey within a week? They make Modi’s graph increase. Same thing was done during Delhi elections, when they started increasing BJP’s seats in opinion polls and ultimately gave it 40 seats,” he alleged.

He said that channels which are subscribing services of tainted surveyors owed explanation to the people.

 Yogendra Yadav demanded that there should be a protocol for companies which conduct opinion polls. The protocol should include background, ownership pattern and track-record of such companies.

Bhushan said that self-regulation has failed in the case of media, so there should be a legal and external regulation.