The Asian Age: Mumbai: Wednesday, 06 August 2014.
Paid news
cases numbering 172 were reported before the media certification and monitoring
committee (MCMC) set up by the electoral office in the 2014 general elections.
However, after thorough scrutiny and explanation, only one out of these cases
could be confirmed.
This was
revealed in the reply to an RTI query by Shirish Mohod, an officer of
under-secretary rank in the state government, but he failed to reply as to what
action had been taken against the candidate guilty of paid news.
A different
RTI query by activist Anil Galgali revealed that 103 out of the 172 cases could
not be ascertained as paid news. In 83 cases, the returning officers (ROs)
issued notices to the candidates and out of these 83 candidates, only two
accepted having spent the amount and showed it in their accounts of stipulated
expenses.
The query further
revealed that in 41 cases, the candidates did not reply to the notice within
the stipulated time. In 40 cases, candidates refused to accept that they had
spent the monies and avoided giving any explanation. They had been given one
month’s time to put forth their explanations before the MCMC.
Mr Galgali,
who has demanded that the names of all 172 erring candidates be put up on the
website, said, “The state government showed scant regard for the statement made
by the Chief Election Commissioner of India H.S. Brahma, who had called
Maharashtra the “capital of paid news”. Officials were not bothered to crack
down on such cases and they are now hushing up the matter by not revealing the
names of the candidates.”
Meanwhile,
Neelesh Gatane, joint chief officer of the electoral office clarified, “The
names of the candidates could not be provided as they were scattered throughout
all 48 constituencies and hence, there was no question of withholding the
names.”
“Currently,
our workforce is engaged in the next round of Assembly elections, and as we are
free we can upload all the relevant information on the website,” Mr Gatane
added.
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