Treat paid news as a poll offence: Sampath

Elaborating on the subject, Sampath said that since paid news was currently not a poll offence, the only way Election Commission could check the menace was by adding the incriminating amount to the candidate’s poll expenses but even that was not fool-proof. “When they (candidates) file their expenditure returns, they always build a cushion for these kind of things. If Rs 40 lakh those days was the limit, invariably no candidate would file a return for more than Rs 25 lakh. That 15 lakh will be the cushion for this,” the CEC said.

Sampath also stated that while the Commission’s control over a candidate’s spending is only after he files his nomination, people make substantial election related expenses before that. “We have a case in Haryana, where a day before the filing of the nomination, a candidate organised a rally in which he was reported to have spent Rs 1.5 crore. Everybody, the whole world knows that he is the candidate. Somebody complains take action against him, you can’t… only from the day he files his nomination we can start looking at his expenditure,” the CEC said.

He added that while advertisements or paid news by political parties is one thing, advertisements given by government during this period “is also paid news”. He added that there are many complaints but “the reality is you really can’t do much about these things”.

Noting that all limits for poll expenditure are for candidates and none for political parties, Sampath said that the EC had seen political parties giving huge amounts of cash to candidates but when it is caught, they say that the money was not meant for the candidate but for him to distribute to others in his district or state.