Delhi polls: Election Commission detects paid news instances

New Delhi, Dec 3: With just one day to go, the Delhi Election Commission has detected instances of paid news relating to five candidates on Tuesday.

According to reports, the paid news instances emerged when the EC was going through the the poll expenses of parties.

However, the Commission is yet to decide on the appeals of two Congress leaders including Revenue Minister Arvinder Singh and Sushil Gupta who have moved against the order of inclusion of amount spent on "paid news" in their poll expenses by the District Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC).

"We have received appeals of both Congress candidates and are in the process of analysing facts. Orders will be passed subsequently," said CEO Vijay Dev.

EC to discuss matter with Press Council of India and broadcasting authority

The other five candidates against whom inclusion of amount has been passed are BJP candidates Neel Daman Khatri (Narela- Rs 17,500) and Jai Prakash (Sadar Bazar - Rs 4,893), BSP candidates Dheeraj Kumar Tokas (R K Puram - Rs 18,019) and Md Saleem Saify ( Nangloi - Rs 9,817).

Out of the 60 complaints of paid news received by the EC, it took suo moto cognisance of 19 cases. In eight cases, no complaint of paid news were found.

Dev said that EC will interact with the Press Council of India and appropriate broadcasting authority to see if any action needed to be taken against media houses for promoting the same.

Delhi will go to polls on December 4. The elections are highly anticipated as the competition is three way this year between BJP, Congress and AAP.

(With PTI inputs)

OneIndia News