NEW DELHI: While digital platforms are playing a key role this poll season and are being used extensively by political parties and candidates, the Election Commission, too, is using such platforms and has come out with multiple mobile applications to conduct a free and fair poll.
For instance, the cVigil app has turned out to be an important tool to report electoral malpractices and the Commission has received over 40,000 complaints of violations of Model Code of Conduct (MCC).
Through the Voter Helpline Mobile app, people can look for their names in the electoral roll, submit forms, check the status of their applications, file complaints and receive the reply on the mobile app.
The Samadhan app assists in addressing grievances related to voter lists and ID cards. The Suvidha App is a single window system for both candidates and parties to apply for permissions before conducting meetings, rallies, etc.
No ad on poll day
The poll panel has said that no political party or candidate or any other organisation or person shall publish any advertisement in the print media on a poll day and a day prior to it unless the contents are pre-certified by it.
The EC wrote a letter to all the parties, candidates and newspapers in this regard on Saturday. The step has been taken keeping in mind instances of ads of offending and misleading nature published in the print media in the past.
The EC has said it has been done to ensure that no untoward incident takes place because of any inflammatory, misleading or hate advertisements.