Candidates with criminal cases must give ads thrice

Vadodara: Candidates of Lok Sabha elections, who have criminal antecedents, will have to mandatory float advertisements in print and electronic media thrice before the voting day.
“The Election Commission of India (ECI) has made it mandatory for all the candidates with criminal antecedents to float advertisements thrice so that the voters get to know all the details before the polling day,” Vadodara district election officer and collector Shalini Agrawal told reporters on Wednesday.

“The matter published will have to be sanctioned by the model code of conduct committee and the cost incurred will be included in the candidate’s election expenditure,” she said.

The process to file nominations for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls will begin from Thursday. On Wednesday, the district election machinery gave a demonstration of working of EVM and VVPAT machines.

While candidates will be able to file nomination papers from Thursday onwards, the last day of submitting the nomination papers is April 4. The nominations will be accepted on all days between 11 am to 3 pm except public holidays.

The candidates will have to ensure that they submit all the details in the affidavits submitted along with the nomination papers or the nomination papers will get rejected.

Agrawal said that the district administration is fully prepared to conduct the elections in a free and fair manner. She said that the citizens now have the power to point out violations of the model code of conduct.

“They can click pictures of violations and sending them to the ECI immediately,” she said, adding that the social media campaigns of the candidates will also be under the ECI scanner.