"It is extremely desirable that the law on the subject is amended urgently by issuing an ordinance," EC Secretary K F Wilfred said in a letter to the Secretary of the Union Ministry of Law and Justice.
The EC said it has observed that various agencies connected with electronic and print media are at present conducting opinion polls in the context of the assembly elections and some of them have even published the result of such polls.
"The Commission is of the considered view that...the conduct of opinion polls and dissemination of results of such polls should be prohibited right from the day of the first notification of an election till the completion of polls in all the phases," the EC said.
It said such a restriction would be in the wider interest of free and fair elections as such opinion polls "often tend to cause prejudicial effect on the minds of electors". Voting will be held tomorrow for 47 of 243 Assembly constituencies in Bihar in the first stage of the six-phase elections.
Published 20 October 2010, 14:05 IST