Assembly polls: How paid news continues to trouble EC

Despite the Election Commission taking extra precautions to make sure the Model Code of Conduct is not violated and despite it having sent many notices to top politicians in the country for violating it, one thing that has remained an issue is paid news. Business Standard reported that “the menace of paid news continued in the elections in 2013, with 143 cases being found by the Election Commission of India (ECI), which released the data on Tuesday evening.” [caption id=“attachment_1268613” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. PTI[/caption] Even as the Delhi elections came to a close, it was reported that the Delhi Election Commission detected 21 cases of paid news out of 80 complaints it received. “From the recently concluded elections in five states, 50 cases of paid news were reported, which were mainly from Rajasthan (18) and Chhattisgarh (18). Madhya Pradesh reported just one,  said Business Standard. In Chhattisgarh, the EC had said ss per directions of Election Commission-constituted Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC), expenses incurred in publishing seven “paid news” before filing of nominations for the second phase of polls would be included in the poll expenditure of BJP and Congress party. Meanwhile in Delhi the district MCMC had passed an order to include Rs 24,407 and Rs 9,786 in the poll expenses of Arvinder Singh and Sushil Gupta respectively. Singh is contesting from Gandhi Nagar while Gupta is a Congress candidate from Moti Nagar constituency “However, after the ECI released its figures on Tuesday evening, the Election Commission of Delhi has found cases of paid news and it said it was in the process of sending a report to the ECI,"  reported Business Standard. With agency inputs