Ban on bulk SMSes 48 hours prior to voting: Haryana CEO

Chandigarh, May 13

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Haryana Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Anurag Agarwal has said the cost of bulk SMS sent by the candidate during the campaign for the Lok Sabha elections will also be included in the expenditure account of the candidate concerned.

He said the district administration and the Assistant Returning Officer concerned on getting the information about the use of bulk messages during the election campaign period, would assess the estimate of the expenditure incurred on it from the respective service provider and include the same into the expenditure account of the candidate.

The CEO said as per the guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India, there would be a complete ban on sending bulk SMSes of political nature during the period up to 48 hours before the end of polling. During the election campaign in all the districts, mobile service providers have given instructions to bring the information about such bulk SMSes to the notice of the monitoring team.