Pre-certification of political advertisements in the print media on the day of the poll and a day prior to it in Chhattisgarh has been made mandatory, said Chhattisgarh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Subrat Sahoo on Tuesday .
Addressing a press conference here, Sahoo pointed out that there are instances of advertisements of offending and misleading nature published in media, which has come to notice of the Election Commission in the past.
As in the last stage of election it vitiates the entire election process while the affected candidates and parties do not have any opportunity of providing clarification/rebuttal in such cases, he said.
Sahoo while citing the directives said that Election Commission exercising the power under Article 324 of the Constitution, has directed that no political party or candidate or any other organisation or person shall publish any advertisement in the print media on November 11 and 12 , 2018 unless the contents of the advertisement proposed to be published by the political parties, candidates etc are to be pre-certified by them from the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee at the state/district level.
The MCMC has also been directed to facilitate the process of pre-certification and also examine it.
He said that the directives of the Election Commission have been intimated to presidents of all political parties, contesting candidates and newspapers in the State.
