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New Delhi:
Political events will now must mandatorily publish particulars of candidates with pending prison instances on celebration web sites and social media platforms, and supply causes for his or her choice in order that voters could make an knowledgeable selection.
Following the Supreme Court’s instructions in February this yr, the Election Commission had in March requested political events to justify why they selected candidates with prison historical past to contest elections.
Assembly elections in Bihar to be held in three phases could be the primary full-fledged polls the place such particulars of their candidates could be made public by events.
The events will even have to clarify why different people with out prison antecedents couldn’t be chosen as candidates.
“The reasons as to selection shall be with reference to the qualifications, achievements and merit of the candidate concerned, and not mere winnability at the polls,” the Commission stated on Friday.
“It is mandatory for political parties (at the central and state election level) to upload on their website detailed information regarding individuals with pending criminal cases who have been selected as candidates, along with the reasons for such selection, as also as to why other individuals without criminal antecedents could not be selected as candidates,” the Commission stated.
The data will even be printed in a single native vernacular newspaper and one nationwide newspaper. Besides it could even be shared on the official social media platforms of the political celebration, together with Facebook and Twitter, the EC defined.
Earlier this month, the EC had made the norms of publicity of prison antecedents of candidates stringent by placing a timeline on when such commercials must be printed and broadcast throughout electioneering.
In October, 2018, the Commission had issued instructions making it obligatory for candidates contesting elections and the events fielding them to promote their prison antecedents in TV and newspapers not less than thrice throughout electioneering.
Now, the EC has made it clear that the primary “publicity” of prison information must be inside first 4 days of the final date of withdrawal of candidature.
It stated the second publicity must be between fifth and eighth day of the final date of withdrawal.
The third and closing publicity must be from ninth day until the final day of marketing campaign — two days previous to polling day.
“This timeline will help the voters in exercising their choices in more informed manner,” an announcement by the Commission stated.
An EC official stated the timeline would be certain that the commercials appeal to the general public eye. There was a sense that candidates time the publicity of their prison information in such a method that it fails to seize consideration.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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