Keep close tab on virtual campaigning expenses by candidates, CEC tells poll observers

NEW DELHI: With the current Covid situation forcing parties and candidates to focus on digital modes of campaign in the five states polls, chief election commissioner

Sushil Chandra

on Friday directed the election observers to keep a close tab on the expenditure incurred by candidates on virtual campaigning, besides monitoring adherence to Covid safety norms by political party leaders and candidates and flagging any violations for necessary action.

Sources said EC will be issuing a revised set of guidelines for the observers on monitoring the expenditure on digital forms of campaigning by the candidates.

The norms, likely to be out on Saturday, will lay down how the digital campaign is to be accounted for and tallied with the registers maintained by the candidates, at the end of the day’s campaign. The candidates too will be familiarized with the norms so that they can accordingly account for their spending on virtual outreach.

At the briefing of nearly 900 observers – general, expenditure and police -- to be deployed in the five poll-bound states of UP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa, and Manipur, Chandra also stressed on the need for the observers to be accessible and visible as they monitor the poll process.

Apart from watching adherence to Covid norms for the safety of vote and voters, the CEC directed observers to ensure a hassle-free experience for voters, including those with disabilities, by visiting the maximum number of booths and seeing to it that SVEEP activities are undertaken on the ground to achieve a higher turnout, particularly among women voters.

Addressing the observers – drawn from the IAS, IPS, IRS and other Central services -- in the meeting held via hybrid mode, Chandra described observers as the ‘eyes and ears’ of EC and asked them to be vigilant against any lapses in model code of conduct and other guidelines.

Stressing on EC’s zero-tolerance towards abuse of money power or any kind of inducements, CEC urged expenditure observers to be innovative in countering newer methods of inducement.

Election commissioner Rajiv Kumar said observers play a cardinal role in the conduct of

elections

and thus need to be accessible and visible to the voters, candidates and political parties to personally attend to their suggestions & grievance redressal. He cautioned the observers that they are always under strict and microscopic scrutiny and should thus be careful and discreet about their own conduct during the election process.

Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey, while highlighting the enhanced role of virtual campaigning in the current times, mentioned the need to curtail misinformation and hate campaigns on social media platforms.