Bengaluru: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has formed around 20 teams to remove all the publicity material that seems to have proliferated during Ugadi. The teams are going around Bengaluru on an overdrive removing posters, buntings and any sort of publicity material that is political in nature.
BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad, who is also the District Election Officer, told media persons on Tuesday that government advertisements that have been put up across the city would also be removed immediately. “The Election Commission of India has given us 24 hours to remove all political publicity material. Photos of political leaders from government websites are also being removed,” he said.
The BBMP Commissioner said he had directed the managing director of Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation V. Ponnuraj to ensure that all government advertisements in bus shelters and on buses are removed immediately. He added that the officials of the Department of Information and Publicity had been directed to ensure there are no government advertisements either on television or radio channels. Any advertisement by any political party will now have to be cleared by the Media Certification Committee that has been formed.
Prasad said that to ensure that the candidates do not violate the model code of conduct, 28 nodal teams had been formed (one for each Assembly constituency). Each Assembly segment will also have six flying squads, three static surveillance teams, three video surveillance teams, one video viewing team, and one accounting team. All teams will be given vehicles fitted with GPS and cameras, he added.
