Election officer finds seven cases of 'paid news' in Raigarh

The District Election Officer has found as many as seven cases of 'paid news' so far in Raigarh, and directed that expenses incurred in publishing such paid political propaganda be added to poll expenditures of the concerned political parties.

Considering seven different news articles published in four local Hindi dailies as "paid news", an Election Commission constituted Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) directed that expenses incurred in publishing these be included in the poll expenditure of the respective political parties, Collector Mukesh Bansal, who is also MCMC's chairman said.

According to the officer, news published in four local Hindi 'newspapers' namely Dainik Jankarm (three articles), Kelo Pravah (two articles), Ispat Times (one article) and Dainik Krantikari Sandesh (one article) were in favour of Congress candidate Shakrajeet Nayak and BJP nominee Roshan Lal Agrawal, who are both from the Raigarh constituency.

However, expenses incurred on publishing these were not added to the poll expenditure of the candidates, since these articles appeared before the declaration of their candidature from the region, the officer said. After the MCMC sought replies from editors of these 'newspapers', only two of them replied within the stipulated period, the official said. Of the seven articles published, four pieces appeared exactly in the same format in all the four 'newspapers', with the same heading, the official said.