ECI has enough power to ensure free & fair polls: Rawat

BHOPAL: Former chief election commissioner (CEC) O P Rawat has said that media plays a vital role in enhancing the credibility of the Election Commission.
Delivering a lecture on ‘Election & Media: Question of credibility’ during Madhavrao Sapre Memorial Newspaper Museum on Wednesday, Rawat said that if media brings into notice even smallest of mistakes during election, the Election Commission also to be alert not to allow any irregularities creep in in the poll process.He said that the Election Commission has unlimited powers to ensure a free and fair polls and if those powers are used properly, nobody would be able to raise a finger on its impartiality.
He said that Election Commission of India and Indian elections are respected all over the world and hoped that its prestige would be maintained with the help of media. Reiterating his stand that EVMs cannot be tampered with, Rawat gave an example of Tripura election and said opposition parties demanded replacement of old EVMs being used in the state over the years arguing that the incumbent government in Tripura used to win election by tampering EVMs but Election Commission didn’t concede and the same EVMs were used and the ruling party lost the election badly.
Deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha and eminent journalist Harivansh, in his lecture on the topic ‘Challenges before contemporary journalism’ said that proliferation of social media is the greatest challenge before contemporary media, as they are affecting the credibility of news and the inability of government to deal with them is only adding to the problem. He said there is now a situation where people have loads of information, but their credibility is suspect. Domination of capital and market forces over media is another area of concern, he said. Harvansh said that technical upgradation is also one major reason for the change in the media. Dr Mangla Anuja’s book ‘Adhi Duniya Ki Puri Patrakarita’, a research-based book on women journalists of India, was also released during the function. Founder-director of the museum Vijay Dutt Sridhar welcomed the guests on the occasion.