Ahead of the May 10 Assembly polls in Karnataka, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on May 7 asked political parties to not publish any advertisement in the print media on the day and a day before the elections without prior certification.
In an advisory to all national and State political parties in the fray, the poll body said that advertisements during the silence period, which is the election day and one day prior to it, will have to be pre-certified by the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC).
“No political party or candidate or any other organisation or person shall publish any advertisement in the print media on poll day and one day prior to poll day unless the contents of political advertisement are got pre-certified by them from the MCMC at the state/district level, as the case may be,” the ECI’s directive said.
Separately, the ECI also wrote to editors of newspapers in Karnataka that the Press Council of India’s norms for journalistic conduct held them responsible for all matters, including advertisements, published in their newspapers.
On May 6, the commission had issued a notice to the Karnataka Congress over its corruption rate card advertisements published in newspapers following a complaint by the BJP. The poll body sought empirical evidence to prove its allegations.
The Congress has been issuing full-page advertisements in leading dailies, charging the BJP with allowing inflation to destroy household budgets in Karnataka and rest of the country. The advertisements listed the rise in prices of essential commodities such as cooking gas, petrol, diesel, rice, milk, and cooking oil.
Earlier on May 2, the ECI had taken serious note of the “plummeting” level of campaign discourse for the Karnataka Assembly polls and had asked political parties, particularly their star campaigners, to exercise restraint and focus on “issue” based debates.
Karnataka will vote for its 224-member Assembly on May 10, and the results will be declared on May 13. Campaigning is scheduled to end on Monday.
