EC to keep an eye on social media accounts of candidates

INDORE

: This time, candidates have to specifically give details of their

social media accounts

, Twitter and Facebook handles, which Election Commission plans to monitor to calculate expenditure on social media content. However, these accounts will not be monitored by EC from content point of view.


With filing of nomination forms, candidates have started forming IT cells to manage workers and send out daily press releases about their next day campaigning schedule. The IT teams are working on spreading the word through all available platforms. Videos of campaigning are also being shared on social media to gather support. "The election officers cannot take any suo motu action against content shared by the candidates on any issue. However, we can work on any complaint made by anyone as per rules of model code of conduct," Ashish Saxena, Jhabua collector said, where many candidates have given details of their Twitter handles and Facebook profiles.

The candidates are also hiring social media managers to handle their accounts and are offerings services such as bulk promotional calls to voters, bulk SMS, advertisement videos, which are approved by administration. In Indore III, Congress candidate Ashwin Joshi has formed his page a month ago for uploading videos of his campaigning and is also actively uploading pictures of his campaigning.