Soon after the polling, the election officials had served notice on 279 candidates suspected to have paid the media houses or media persons to get their news carried.
As many as 201 candidates who contested the assembly elections in Punjab have admitted to having paid for news items in the media and have agreed to add it to the total expenditure they incurred for their campaigning. In all 1,098 had candidates contested for 117 seats.
Soon after the polling, the election officials had served notice on 279 candidates suspected to have paid the media houses or media persons to get their news carried.
According to a senior official, the suspects were identified after a close watch kept on the campaign of each candidates for whom a shadow register was maintained by the media monitoring
committees constituted in each district.
The official confirmed that 201 candidates admitted to prevailing on newspaper offices by paying them money to carry their campaign to the advantage over their respective rivals.
While the official declined to comment on the amount spent on paid news, it is believed that that each candidates spent at least Rs10-15 lakh each for the purpose.
Operational in 22 districts, the media monitoring committees had reported 372 cases of paid news. The Election Commission subsequently decided to issue notices to 279 candidates, of which 73 candidates denied having going in for paid news and 36 even contested the notices issued to them.
“Their objections have been sent to the Chief Election Commissioner who will decide on the future course of action,” said the official. Mansa topped the 22 districts with as many as 64 cases of paid news reported by the committees, of which 57 were issued notices and 27 challenged the notice issued to them.
Amritsar trailed behind Mansa with 40 candidates being issued notices of the total 47 cases reported.
Three districts, including Moga, Mohali and Fazilka, did not report any instance of paid news. The official, however, clarified that no prominent candidate of any political party was found to have opted for paid news in any newspaper.
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