Collector and District Electoral Officer Siddharth Komal Singh Pardeshi on Wednesday announced that a total of four booths in Raipur district have been declared as ‘sensitive’ in terms of the propensity of the candidates to ‘overspend’ during the campaigning period.
‘One booth each in the Raipur North, South, West and Rural Assembly segments have been identified as ‘sensitive’ in terms of poll expenditure to be made by the candidates,’ he told reporters in a briefing at the District Collectorate here.
He said that on the directives of the Election Commission of India a ‘Vulnerability Mapping Exercise’ was carried out in all the polling booths in which a total of 28 persons were identified as those who could influence voters out of which 7 have been externed from the district.
On the issue of ‘paid news’ , Pardeshi said that a ‘certification’ for the advertisement being released in the electronic media and radio is mandatory from the media monitoring committees established at the state and district levels for the owners of such media houses.
Regrading the print media, he said that if a single news item appears on different names in various publications, it could be construed as ‘paid news’.
Pardeshi said that the ‘paid news’ is a matter of interpretation and a vigil would be maintained on the content of all publications.
In case it is suspected that a publication has published ‘paid news’, the matter would be thoroughly probed and action would be taken against the candidate on whom the content had been published.
Pardeshi said that the Social Media also comes under the ambit of ‘paid news’ and any content which is suspected to be of ‘paid’ nature would be probed and action taken. The bulk SMSs sent during the polls also come under the ambit of ‘paid news’, he added.
On the issue of the ‘voter trails’ to be maintained on EVMs following the Supreme Court directives, he said that the order on the issue is awaited from the Election Commission.