Close watch on paid news complaints in upcoming polls: CEC

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) V S Sampath today said paid news was a serious problem in the electoral process and a close watch would be kept on it and election expenditure of candidates during the Assembly polls in five states later this year.
Paid news would be a focus area of the Election Commission this time and a media certification and monitoring committee (MCMC) would be set up at the district level to contain it, Sampath who held a high level meeting with officers of state and central government departments at the secretariat, told reporters here.
MCMC would work round-the-clock, complaints would be disposed off withing 48 hours and orders would be passed to candidates concerned in a time bound manner, the CEC said.

A three-tier MCM committee would find and work on complaints of paid news and expenditure of candidates, he said.
Election process in five states has to be over by the end of December, Sampath said, adding so far the CEC team has visited Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and will visit Delhi and Mizoram in the coming days.
Election dates would be announced after completion of the review of preparations in the poll bound states, he said.

Flying squads and personnel of Income Tax department would be there to detect alleged distribution of cash, liquor and other things among voters, the CEC said.

Surveillance teams would be deployed at airports and inter-state borders to check transportation of liquor, money and other items, he said.
The EC is also planning to provide "photo voter slips" carrying date, polling booth number and identification details to voters at their door step so that they would be identified easily, Sampath said.
Model Code of Conduct would come in force with the announcement of election schedule in the poll-bound states, he said.
Replying to a question, the CEC said an experiment on "verifiable voter slip" (to ascertain whether a voter's vote is cast) was successfully conducted in Nagaland and would be introduced in the system later on.

On distribution of "freebies" before polls, Sampath said a discussion was held with political parties and the matter was under examination.
The CEC said, altogether 6,910 "critical polling stations" were identified in Rajasthan as of today and arrangements would be made to ensure free and fair polls.
There are over 4.6 crore voters in Rajasthan and 45,334 polling booths would be set up, he said.
Yesterday, the CEC held meetings with representatives of political parties at the secretariat.