Many candidates for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections have reportedly failed to furnish full details of their social media accounts in their affidavits, despite being mandated to do so by the Election Commission.
At least 10 candidates, including those who have verified pages and accounts on platforms like Facebook, have failed to mention the existence of the online accounts to returning officers in Form 26 of their nomination papers. These social media accounts are being flooded with content related to the election campaign of the candidates.
TDP candidates K.S. Jawahar (Tiruvuru constituency), Vallabhaneni Vamsi Mohan (Gannavaram), YSRCP candidates Kolusu Partha Sarathy (Penamaluru), and Jogi Ramesh (Pedana), to name a few, own verified Facebook pages.
Mr. Jawahar’s page has over 50,000 followers while Mr. Vamsi’s page has over 80,000 followers. Both Mr. Partha Sarathy and Mr. Ramesh also have thousands of followers and are actively promoting content aimed at garnering votes. Also, other candidates including Muddaraboina Venkateswara Rao (Nuzvid), Kodali Sri Venkateswara Rao (Gudivada), and K. Rakshana Nidhi and others have not declared their presence on social media, but are active users.
As per the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), the Election Commission considers any content being promoted on social media as an electronic media advertisement and the expenditure incurred on maintaining the social media management teams of candidates will be considered as election expenditure.