Election Commission on Paid news during elections

The Election Commission has been receiving various complaints/references regarding “Paid News” and advertisements on TV/Cable Channels networks owned by political parties or their functionaries/office bearers during the process of elections, thus disturbing the level playing field, as these are not reflected in the candidate’s election expenses account. The Commission vide its guidelines issued on 8th June 201o, 23rd September 2010 and 18th March, 2011 has already put in place a mechanism to deal with the problems of “Paid News”.
However, in order to bring better uniformity in dealing with such instances even when no consideration of cash and kind is involved in extending campaign publicity to candidates, the Commission has issued guidelines to the Chief Electoral Officers of all the States/UTs on 16th August 2011, for dealing with candidates’ advertisements on TV/Cable channels owned by political parties or their functionaries/office bearers during elections.
The guidelines are available on the Commission’s website www.eci.nic.in under hyperlink http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/index.asp. These will have immediate effect.
Election Commission of India
New Delhi , 19th August , 2011