The Election Commission on Wednesday reportedly asked Twitter to remove all tweets related to the Lok Sabha election exit polls, just four days before the final phase of the election.
Reports said on Thursday that the EC had acted upon a complaint that it had received. The user who had violated the election rules wasn’t specified however, the user has already removed the tweet.
“There is no such general order issued by ECI today. Only one case was reported to us today which the user himself removed,” a senior functionary said.
Earlier three media houses, Indo-Asian News Service, Economic Times and Swaraj Mass Media had been served a show-cause notice for publishing a survey “predicting results” of Lok Sabha elections. The EC has asked them to respond within 48 hours.
“The ECI has received complaints against three media houses with respect to displaying poll surveys predicting results of Lok Sabha elections. The ECI has sought an explanation from these media houses as to why action should not be taken against them for violation of the provision of section 126A of Representation of the People Act,” the poll body said in a statement.
The EC had banned Exit Polls from the time the poll begins till half-an-hour after the polling ends since 1998 using the powers under the Representation of People Act, 1951. However, media houses have been caught blatantly violating this rule.
On 12th May 2019, Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), in a gross violation of the Model Code of Conduct rules, published a comprehensive Exit Poll. It had tweeted a survey of voters which was, according to them, undertaken by institutions and calculations by independent psephologists.
Swaraj Express, an online media portal, was also caught airing an exit poll on Youtube which was anchored by Vinod Dua. The video has since been removed from Youtube.