The Election Commission of India (ECI) has put in place an effective monitoring system to keep watch on any violation by English, Hindi and regional news channels on the day of poll and a day prior to the polling during the Lok Sabha elections -2019.
The Commission has entrusted the job of media monitoring toElectronic Media Monitoring Centre (EMMC), Ministry of Information &Broadcasting.
On the poll day prior to the poll, the EMMC will sendtwo-hourly report to the Election Commission of India and the concerned ChiefElectoral Officer. The CEO concerned will file Action Taken Report (ATR)through the Media Monitoring and Response Team on the items reported by EMMC inthe form of ATR.
For the prompt action, EMMC shall forward the Media Reportof any important events/MCC violation/search and seizure across the State tothe CEO and ECI. On the completion of each phase of poll, an analysis on MediaMonitoring based on EMMC report and action taken at ECI/CEO level shall besubmitted to the Commission for perusal and information. After the election isover, a consolidated analytical report shall be submitted to the Commission ona dynamic/comparative chart format.
Defining the role of CEOs, the guidelines of ElectionCommission envisages that the CEO will ascertain status on the items on thereport and file ATR/Status Report within two hours before the generation ofnext report to the Commission for its perusal/action. The analysis of MediaMonitoring shall be done by the ECI after each phase of poll and final analysiswill be done after the elections are over.
Meanwhile, the EC has imposed complete prohibition onbroadcasting or propagating election-related material on TV, Radio ornewspapers. Any such material influencing the voters would not be permissibleduring the 48 hours before the polls. However, any advertisement beingpublished in the newspapers during this specified period requires priorpermission/certification from the ECI.