The Chief Electoral Officer, Nagaland has highlighted the issue of pre-certification of political advertisements in print media on the day of the poll & one day prior to the poll citing the Election Commission of India letter Dated 19th October 2020, wherein the Commission has noted that instances of advertisements of offending and misleading nature published in print media have been brought to the notice of the Commission in the past. Such advertisements in the last stage of the election vitiate the entire election process. The affected candidates and parties will not have any opportunity of providing clarification/rebuttal in such cases.

In order to ensure that such instances are not repeated, and no untoward incident takes place because of any inflammatory, misleading, or hate advertisements, the Commission, in the exercise of its powers under Article 324 of the Constitution, and all other powers enabling it in this behalf, hereby directs that no Political Party or Candidate or any other Organization or Person shall publish any Advertisement in the print media on the poll day and one day prior to poll day, unless the contents of the Advertisement proposed to be published by the Political Parties, Candidates, etc. are got Pre-certified by them from the MCMC Committee at the State/District level, as the case may be, in your State.

It is further directed that in order to facilitate the process of pre-certification of the newspaper advertisements and as instructed above, MCMC at State/district level be immediately alerted and activated in order to examine and pre-certify all such advertisements received from the political parties and candidates and others. It should also be ensured that the decision by MCMC is made expeditiously.

The above direction of the Commission may be brought to the notice of Presidents of all political parties, contesting candidates, and Newspapers in the States and also given wide publicity to all Media of Mass Communication for general information and strict compliance.

(DIPR)