New Delhi: Taking a serious view of political parties and their candidates indulging in corrupt practices and bribery, the Election Commission of India (ECI) today issued an advisory to all national and state political parties to immediately desist from such activities.
The Commission highlighted activities by political parties and candidates seeking details of voters under the guise of various surveys for their proposed beneficiary schemes. Describing it as a corrupt practice of bribery under Section 123(1) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, the ECI asked the parties to cease such activities that involve registering individuals for post-election beneficiary-oriented schemes through any advertisements, surveys and apps.
“Some political parties and candidates have been engaging in activities that blur the lines between legitimate surveys and partisan efforts to register individuals for post-election beneficiary-oriented schemes,” the ECI stated.
The Commission said the act of inviting/calling upon individual electors to register for post-election benefits may create an impression of the requirement of a one-to-one transactional relationship between the elector and the proposed benefit and has the potential to generate a quid-pro-quo arrangement for voting in a particular way thereby leading to inducement.
Acknowledging that generic and general electoral promises are in the realm of permissibility, the ECI noted that such activities as mentioned in the table below obscure the distinction between authentic surveys and biased attempts to enrol people in programs for political gain, all while masquerading as legitimate survey activities or efforts to inform about government programs or party agendas related to potential individual benefits.
Table 1:
The Commission today also directed all District Election Officers to take appropriate actions against any such advertisements within the statutory provisions namely Section 127A of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951, 123 (1) of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951, and Section 171 (B) Indian Penal Code.
– global bihari bureau
