Port Blair, Apr 08: The Election Commission of India in a letter to the Chief Electoral Officers of all States and Union Territories has stated that instances of advertisements of offending and misleading nature published in print media have been brought to the notice of the Election Commission of India in the past. Such advertisements in the last stage of the election vitiate the entire election process. The affected candidates and parties will not have any opportunity to provide clarification/rebuttal in such cases.
In order to ensure that such instances are not repeated, and no untoward incident takes place because of any inflammatory, misleading or hate advertisements, the Commission, in exercise of its powers under Article 324 of the Constitution and all other powers enabling it in this behalf, has directed that no political party or candidate or any other organization or person shall publish any advertisement in the print media on Poll day and one day prior to Poll day in all the phases unless the contents of political advertisements are got pre-certified by them from the Media Certification & Monitoring Committee (MCMC) at the State/District Level, as the case may be. This will apply in the case of political advertisements to be published in the print media in circulation in the State/UTs going to Poll in the phases as given below.
| Phase and Date of Poll | Restricted Days ( Poll day & one day prior to poll day) |
| First Phase – 11th April, 2019 | 10th & 11th April, 2019 |
| Second Phase- 18th April, 2019 | 17th & 18th April, 2019 |
| Third Phase- 23rd April, 2019 | 22nd & 23rd April, 2019 |
| Fourth Phase – 29th April , 2019 | 28th & 29th April, 2019 |
| Fifth Phase- 6th May, 2019 | 5th & 6th May, 2019 |
| Sixth Phase- 12th May, 2019 | 11th & 12th May, 2019 |
| Seventh Phase-19th May, 2019 | 18th & 19th May , 2019 |
The ECI has further directed that in order to facilitate the process of pre-certification of the newspaper advertisements and as instructed above, MCMC at State/District level be immediately alerted and activated in order to examine and pre-certify all such advertisements received from the political parties and candidates and others. It should also be ensured that the decision by MCMC is made expeditiously. These directions shall come into force immediately.