The ruling Bharatiya Janta Party has committed a violation of the legal rules set by the Indian parliament.
The violation falls under the Section 126(1) of the Representation of the People Act 1951 which clearly states that “no person shall display to the public any election matter by means of cinematograph, television or other similar apparatus in any polling area during the period of forty-eight hours ending with the hour fixed for the conclusion of the poll for any election in that polling area.”
The 48–hour silence period for the ongoing election phase began at 5pm on Sunday and would be in place till the end of polling on Wednesday.
However, according to Facebook’s weekly political ads report, the BJP has already spent around Rs. 44 lakh between 14 th and 20th April which makes it the highest spender on Facebook for a second week in a row .
The BJP had earlier spent around Rs 51 lakh on 28 advertisements from 7-13 April .This is the third consecutive violation by the BJP which had earlier committed a similar violation before and during the first phase of the Indian elections.
These paid promotions comprising of 600 active ads displaying the key election manifesto promises of the BJP target either one particular state or many states like West Bengal,Uttar Pradesh ,Maharashtra,Gujrat and Bihar all of which will vote on April 23rd during the third phase of the election cycle .
The Indian Election Commission’s observations and decisions regarding the prevention of abuse of cyberspace during elections were expressed in the Umesh Sinha Committee Report which made important observations regarding regulation of social media during the crucial 48-hour period of election silence but this report was never made public.
In EC’s press release, the report’s scope of work covered the impact of new media platforms and social media during the prohibitory period of 48 hours before the close of polling and its implications in view of the provisions of section 126. According to EC this report was needed because “the task of maintaining campaign silence during last 48 hours before the conclusion of polling is becoming increasingly onerous in the light of the increasing influence of digital media”
Despite the full report not being made public, its recommendations formed the crux of the Code of Ethics formulated for social media platforms operating in India . Seven social media giants including Facebook, Google, Whatsapp, Twitter, Sharechat ,Tik Tok and BigoTV have signed an eight point Code Of Ethics for the General Elections 2019.
The point 3 of the Ethics code says that a social media platform will act on violations of section 126 of the Representation of People Act provided it receives a valid legal request from the Election Commission for it.
Therefore, the code says nothing about the social media platform acting on violations of its own accord.
The code also states that “These valid legal orders will be acknowledged and/or processed within 3 hours for violations reported under section 126 as per the Sinha Committee recommendations”.
However, despite Facebook agreeing on March 20th to voluntarily take down political advertisements during the mandated 48-hour silence period it has not done so in any of the three phases of polling so far.
The onus is now on the BJP and election Commission to ensure the silence period is observed by all.