Use of foul language may attract action: EC

The Election Commission will tell political parties this week not to vitiate poll atmosphere by levelling unauthenticated charges against each other.

Updated on: Feb 3, 2014, 02:02:08 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Election Commission will tell political parties this week not to vitiate poll atmosphere by levelling unauthenticated charges against each other.

The EC will also seek consent of the parties on slew of new measures to be introduced during 2014 Lok Sabha elections, including online filing of affidavits in English and Hindi and curbing the use of black money.

"The commission will make all efforts to make election free and fair and will not hesitate to take action against political parties for any violation of the regulations," a senior election commission functionary told HT.

The functionary also said that the EC will come out with new do’s and don’ts for the parties to ensure public discourse of high order. The EC will also reiterate the action including de-recognition of the parties for repeated violation of the election code of conduct.

In an effort to prevent use of un-parliamentary language witnessed during 2013 polls for five states, the EC will circulate a draft at the meeting to be held with representatives of parties on February 5.

The parties are likely to be briefed on EC’s new measures to put a check on use of black money including mandatory disclosure of source of the money for contesting polls.

The commission will also appoint more expenditure observers in constituencies with a team of officials conducting raids. "We have finalised new directions for polls officers on expenditure to make it difficult for candidates to use unaccounted money in polls," an official said.

The EC will also increase poll expenditure limit by up to 30%. As of now the limit ranges from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 40 lakh per Lok Sabha constituency depending on the number of voters it has.

However, the commission does not expect much headway in electoral reforms being proposed by the Law Commission before the next general elections.

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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