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The Aam Aadmi Party today petitioned the Election Commission to put in place norms for restraining television channels and others from release of any political CD before getting it certified by the poll body, as applicable to political parties.
An AAP delegation that met Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath and Election Commissioners H S Brahma and SNA Zaidi said though such a rule is in place for political parties and candidates in fray, there was no such guideline applicable on others before release of any video CD or sting operation.
"The political parties or candidates are thus not doing it themselves but are using bogus media organisations to do so and not directly by them. We have asked the EC to make such guidelines applicable on political parties and candidates for getting video CDs or sting operations pre-certified from the EC before release. This restriction should be there for media organisations and others also, otherwise there will not be a free and fair election," AAP leader Prashant Bhushan said.
He said there are apprehensions of releasing more such sting operations in the coming times aimed at defaming AAP and the EC should put in place some mechanism to ensure a level- playing field.
"Under the present law, all parties have to seek pre- certification from EC. We have sought this restriction to be made applicable to others too," AAP leader Yogendra Yadav said.
He said both the major national parties (Congress and BJP) have been "rattled" with the AAP response and thus are timing their complaints in such a way ahead of elections that AAP does not get time to respond.
"The EC should have a mechanism in effect to ensure a level-playing field," he said.
The AAP delegation also handed over an analysis of the sting operation against it and claimed their candidate/leaders had "not done any wrong" after viewing the raw footage of the said sting.
"We gave our analysis to them (about the sting operation) and handed over back the video footage of the said sting...This is a first attempt (to malign us)...There will be more such attempts and EC should put in place some mechanism," Bhushan said, claiming that more such stings are expected on november 29 and 30 and December 1 and 2.
