“Opinion and exit polls should at best be on entertainment channels!,” Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi tweeted on Sunday, taking an apparent dig at the surveys.
The reaction of the CEC, who made his Twitter debut on February 29, came amid various exit polls whose results were telecast on various TV news channels.
The CEC told a TV channel that any move (by the government) to make the model code of conduct a statutory provision will kill the model code of conduct. He said that if anyone tried to violate the model code of conduct, the EC now has the power to act immediately against the offender.
He, however, added that if the statutory backing is given to the model code of conduct, it will result in 'delays' and thereby kill the code itself.
On the model code of conduct, he was also quoted by news agencies as saying, “We do not require any more powers. The model code of conduct is sufficient. But we need to fine-tune and update certain provisions of the Representation of People’s Act to make penalties for violation of the MCC more stringent.”
He further added, “We have demonstrated that our powers are good enough and we have used them judiciously.”
He was also quoted as saying that “the current fines for violations of the MCC under the Act are ridiculous. For instance, there is a fine of only Rs500 prescribed under the Act for a violation, which needs to be updated to bring it in line with the current realities.”
Commenting further on the model code of conduct, he said, “It is working very effectively. It only needs some fine-tuning.”