Bengaluru: The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) for Karnataka has made it clear that in the upcoming Assembly elections, a political party or candidate can request vote through the advertisements but if they tried to influence voters by publishing content in the form of news, it would be considered as “paid news.”
CEO Sanjiv Kumar said that a media certification and supervision committee would be formed. Even the newspaper and website columns which try to influence voters would come under this. Moreover, EC has decided to keep a closer eye on social media and made it mandatory for all candidates, political parties to mention their social media accounts in the affidavit, he said.
There will be a hawk’s eye on the Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other social media accounts of the candidate as well as the political party. If the contents published in such sites are related to the election campaign, then it will be added to the expenditure of the party or the candidate.
The CEO also said that legal actions would be initiated if there were any points which broke the election model code of conduct. For this, there will be a special cell in every district-centres. They would check individual social media accounts. If they receive complaint regarding any campaign about the candidate or party, provocative or abusive contents, action would be taken under IT Act, the CEO added.
