Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampath said on Saturday that the poll panel had recommended to the law Ministry to treat all paid news as electoral offence as it had been causing huge damage to the poll process.
Delivering the keynote address at a seminar on electoral reforms in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday, Sampath said that corruption implications of paid news had its impact on the media, candidates and the people and that it was an offence which caused “maximum damage” to the electoral process.
Paid news should be categorized as an electoral offence so that all those who indulged in it faced the consequences, the CEC said. Stating that the time called for radical poll reforms, Sampth said that decriminalisation of politics, transparency in the functioning of political parties and auditing of their funds were some factors that needed immediate attention.
“We have a long way to go in electoral reforms. Inadequacies on this front have been felt and expressed in many areas,” he said adding that remedial measures were slow in coming. Stating that law to prohibit candidates with criminal records was underway, Sampath said a drastic change in such things could not be expected in a short time.
Speaking on the model code of conduct for political parties, he said that the practice of giving advertisements by governments on their achievements just days before the announcement of the election schedule should be stopped. However, issues pertaining to health, poverty alleviation schemes, etc could be treated as exceptions in this regard, he opined.
Pointing out that about 30 percent of the people did not vote in the last election, he Sampath ruled out the possibility of making voting in election compulsory by law. The Election Commission would have to take cases against about 30 crore people if voting was made compulsory, he said.
On the sidelines of the programme, Sampath indicated that the lok Sabha election could be announced in March. He said that the election could be held in phases as in the case of the last election.