Haryana Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Shrikant Walgad on Wednesday said all the candidates in the fray for the Lok Sabha polls from the state would have to get each and every content certified by the authorities before posting it on the social media.
Besides, they would also have to provide the details of expenditure, if any, incurred on posting such content, which will be added to the overall poll expenses. And Walgad said all arrangements had been made for conducting the elections in the state’s 10 LS seats, which will go to the polls on April 10, 2014.
According to Walgad, the State Election Commission (SEC) will issue the notification for the polls on March 15 and the last date for filing of nominations is March 22.
The scrutiny of papers will take place on March 24, with March 26 being the last date for withdrawing the nominations.
On the mechanism to keep tabs on ‘paid news’ in the print and the electronic media, Walgad informed that a monitoring committee has been formed for the purpose.
In the event of the panel detecting a news item as a case of ‘paid news’, the money thus paid would be added to the poll expenses of the candidate concerned.
Walgad said three flying squads in each constituency would supervise the entire process during the elections. And the squads would videograph political functions and rallies.
Besides, the teams would put nakas at different locations based on the information received in this regard.
Further, the Chief Electoral Officer revealed that there are 16,129 polling stations in the state. Each polling station would either have a micro observer for supervision or web casting or videography would be carried out at each station.
He said more than 70,000 polling personnel and about 1,300 supervisors would be pressed into service for ensuring free and fair elections.
Also, an assistant expenditure observer would be deputed in each of the state’s 90 Assembly segments while a general observer will be deployed in each of the LS seats.