The Chief Electoral Office (CEO) of Karnataka has taken action on 390 social media posts during the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in the State following complaints from the social media cells of political parties.
“Out of these 390 posts, 344 pertained to incurring expenditure and the same has been forwarded to concerned Returning Officers and political parties for booking the expenditure under election expenditure of candidate/party by following due procedure,” said Sanjiv Kumar, Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka.
Model code violation
“Remaining 46 posts are in violation of MCC and 19 posts are sent to District Election Officer/Returning Officer for taking penal action and 27 are sent to Social Media platforms through Election Commission of India (ECI) for taking out the content from social media as they are violations of the advisory issued by ECI. The same are taken down from social media platforms,” he added.
On the public grievance redress front, of the 89,402 calls received through voter helplines, 79,564 sought information, 470 were have for giving feedback, 4,636 offered suggestions and 4,732 have registered complaints. In all 88,896, calls were disposed off. In addition, 9,694 complaints were registered by citizens on the NGRS portal, out of which, 8,325 have been disposed off.
The CEO said complaints have been received through emails and letters (786), newspapers (325), TV channels (70), social media (390). Out of the total 1,571 complaints, 1,554 have been disposed of.
About 2,600 complaints were received through the cVIGIL application. Major complaints received related to posters/banners without permission (546), money distribution (211), distribution of liquor (125), vehicle or convoy without permission (111), distribution of gifts/coupons (87), paid news (53), property defacement (48). As many as 1,090 complaints were found to be correct and action was taken on them.
Surveillance
Talking about election related surveillance in the State, Kumar said: “Cumulatively, flying squads, Static Surveillance Teams and police authorities seized cash worth ₹16.36 crore, 18,213.10 litres of liquor worth ₹63.91 lakh, 137 kg of drugs worth ₹6.62 lakh and other items worth ₹3.72 crore and booked 1,887 FIRs till date. The Income Tax Department seized cash worth ₹17.55 crore and other items worth ₹7.03 crore.”
The Excise department seized 9.24 lakh litres of liquor worth ₹36.50 crore, 14.977 kg drugs worth ₹4.48 lakh and booked 2,463 heinous cases, 3,542 cases for breach of licence conditions, eight NDPS and 11,006 cases under Section 15 (a) of the Karnataka Excise act 1965.
In Bengaluru Urban District, the Income Tax department seized cash worth ₹99.95 lakh and other articles worth ₹45.24 lakh and investigation is under progress. In Uttar Kannada district, by the information received by District Election Officer Karwar, the Income Tax Department seized cash worth ₹82.70 lakh.