EC issues notice on political ads in print media

As the Lok Sabha polls comes knocking on doors, the Election Commission of India, in a communique, has directed political party or candidate or any other organization or person not to publish any advertisement in the print media on poll day or one day prior to poll day in all the phases, unless the contents of political advertisements are pre-certified by them from the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) at the State/District level.

According to the communique, for Assam, the restricted days of advertisement are 10th and 11th April, 2019 for Phase-I; 17th and 18th April, 2019 for Phase-II; 22nd and 23rd April for Phase-III respectively.

ECI has also made it clear that in order to facilitate the process of pre-certification of the newspaper advertisements, MCMC at State/District level must examine and pre-certify all such advertisements received from the political parties, candidates and others.