Supreme Court on Tuesday had ordered that the candidates who are contesting the election will have to carry out their ‘negative’ publicity if they have any history of criminal activities.
The Election Commission has already informed the chief electoral officers of all the poll-bound states and a notice is likely to be issued soon. As there are reports that Telangana might hold the elections in the end November before the other poll bound state the candidate in the state are likely to reveal their criminal information if any. The other states to go for poll by the end of this year are, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Mizoram and Chattisgarh.
Earlier the EC was unsure of exempting the cost of this publicity from the total prescribed expenditure for a candidate. But considering the high costs of advertising the EC is likely to exclude this cost from the overall budget of the candidates’ expenditure on advertising.
As per the EC officials a new format will be rolled out with the guidelines of how should the candidates put their criminal information in public domain so that there is no loophole left for exploitation of new rule. Despite SC continuously asking legislators to form a law to keep criminals away from the political leadership, no such measure had been taken. With this step, SC is trying to at least make the people aware as to whom they are voting for.