EC eye on campaigns

In its attempt to prevent politicians from making communally charged speeches, the Election Commission has issued instructions to 'video track' public functions of all prominent leaders. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Mar 19, 2009, 01:15:19 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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You could call it the Varun Gandhi effect.

In its attempt to prevent politicians from making communally charged speeches, the Election Commission has issued instructions to “video track” public functions of all prominent leaders.

The decision to record will lie with election observers, but the order covers leaders like Sonia Gandhi, LK Advani as well as some usual suspects.

“The video recording will help the commission decide whether the leader had violated the model code of conduct immediately,” a commission official explained, in reference to Varun’s case.

The EC had to depend on a report from the Pilibhit district magistrate to issue a showcause notice to Varun and the BJP for violation of the model code of conduct.

EC officials said observers have been told that past offenders like Bal Thackeray should be video-tracked throughout their campaign anywhere in the country.

“Special security arrangement will be made for the camera team so they can do their work without any hindrance,” an official said.

The central election observers will also have the power to stop a leader from delivering a speech, if the official believes that it can create law and order problem. Parties have been told to submit a list of leaders who wil be campaigning across the country.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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