EC puts brakes on exit polls till May 19

Hyderabad: The Election Commission has imposed restrictions on conduct of exit polls and publication and dissemination of the same in any manner in connection with Lok Sabha polls to be conducted in the State on April 11(Thursday).

In a press statement issued on Wednesday, Telangana Chief Electoral Officer Dr Rajat Kumar said that restrictions would be in place from 7 am on April 11 (the first phase of election) till 6.30 pm on May 19 (the last phase of election) and during this period conducting any exit poll and publishing or publicizing by means of print or electronic media or dissemination in any other manner is prohibited.

Also displaying any election matter including results of any opinion poll or any other poll survey are also prohibited during the period of 48 hours ending with the hours fixed for conclusion of poll in the respective polling areas. These decisions were taken under provisions of Section 126A of the Representation of People's Act, 1951.

Deputy CEO Satyavani reiterated that during 48 hours silence period (from 5 pm on April 9 till 5 pm on April 11) telecasting election-related matters, discussions, election analysis, repeating old election-related programmes, telecasting other State election-related events are banned and she alerted all news channels to follow ECI instructions strictly.