The members of Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) are keeping a close vigil on the news and articles about the contestants in print and electronic media. The MCMC team stationed at the Collectorate here is working round the clock to keep an eye on the paid news.
The nodal officer of the MCMC for Dehradun district is Chief Development Officer (CDO) Alok Kumar Pandey. He said that the team has found five cases of paid news in the district. Three cases involve the Rastriya lok Dal candidate from Tehri lok Sabha Japinder Singh and two involve the former Chief Minister and BJP candidate from Haridwar Ramesh Pokhariyal “Nishank”. Interestingly MCMC has recommended only Rs6,900 to add on the poll expenditure of Japinder Singh and Rs12,000 on the expenditure of Nishank.
The MCMC members scan all the newspapers and watch the news on the electronic channels. The cell has four television sets; the members also keep watch on the web world from a number of computers. Explaining the working of MCMC the Information officer and member of MCMC PD Pandey said after observing the case of paid news the MCMC sends it to the concerned election returning officer who issues notices to the candidates under Representation of the People Act.
The candidates are given a time period of three days to reply on the notice; they can also appeal against it before the state MCMC. Pandey said that the department imposes the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) rates on the instances of paid news and it is added in the expenditure of the candidate.