With candidates increasingly choosing the cyber route to woo young voters, the Election Commission has asked candidates to furnish their social media and blog accounts in order to monitor their online campaigning.
As candidates and political parties in five poll-bound States gear up for campaigning, an EC circular issued on Friday required candidates to furnish information of their Facebook, Twitter accounts and personal blogs at the time of filing nomination.
Any advertisement posted on these web pages will require pre-certification from the poll panel and expenses incurred on such campaign must be filed along with the poll expense by the candidate after conclusion of elections.
The content on internet and social media of the candidate will be governed by the Model Code of Conduct and any transgression of the same would be visited with punitive action. The Commission identified five types of social media, namely collaborative projects (like Wikipedia), blogs and micro blogs (Twitter), content communities (Youtube), social networking sites (Facebook), virtual game worlds (like Apps).
It is the first time the Commission is tightening screws on campaigning in the virtual world. With social media and blogs becoming the fast and effective tool to connect to a fast-moving young generation, the political parties are leaving no stone unturned to lure them by creating Facebook pages for their candidates. They are even promoting their campaign on WhatsApp besides using phone calls. Even Twitter is proving to be a new medium for candidates to advertise, besides their blogs and web pages.
Parties in all States have hired software experts to strategise the online campaign. Smartphone are being supplied to candidates to utilise these facilities.
Categorising social media as “electronic media”, the EC said that all its notification with regard to pre-certification of ads and expenditure report will equally apply to online media as well. The poll panel will hold consultations with the Ministry of Communications and IT on practical ways to enforce its guidelines when persons related to the candidate violate the EC circular. To the extent they relate to or can be reasonably connected with the ongoing election campaigning, the EC proposes to act against such content.