As the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 draw closer, the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) in Bangalore district gears up to enforce strict vigilance on paid news and social media.
A district level Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) workshop was held today under the chairmanship of district electoral officer (DEO), Tushar Giri Nath, to monitor pre-certification of political advertisement, paid news, social media etc.
At the outset, the DEO of Bangalore briefed the participants about the enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), MCMC guidelines, and the expenditure monitoring mechanism.
Preeti Gehlot, chief nodal officer, MCMC, said, “All registered national and state political parties contesting the election must apply for pre-certification of political advertisement published two days prior to the date of the telecast of the advertisement.”
She added, “The timeline to submit application for certification of unregistered political parties or independent candidates should be not later than seven days prior to the date of telecast.”
The chief nodal officer also gave guidelines on monitoring of the electronic media, print media, and social media.
Pasha, a representative of the Indian National Congress (INC) said that they have been running social media campaigns for a decade now. However, they said that in the last five years, they have hardly had any cases of violation of the MCMC guidelines in Bangalore.
Under the directive of the Election Commission of India (ECI), the MCMC monitors media platforms to identify and deter the dissemination of paid news, which often distorts public discourse and manipulates voter sentiment.
Key functions of the MCMC include scrutinizing advertisements, news reports, and other media content to detect any instances of paid news or biased coverage. Additionally, the committee will facilitate the certification of political advertisements to ensure compliance with electoral laws and regulations.
The workshop was conducted by the MCMC at the Vivekananda Hall, BBMP Head Office; MCMC members and media representatives of different political parties participated in the workshop.
As per the data by the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, there are more than five crore electors as of March, 2024.
