60 paid news cases, EC ready for Delhi election

New Delhi: The Delhi Election Commission on Monday said that it has received as many as 60 complaints related to paid news in connection with the December 4 Assembly election. The commission also claimed that the liquor sale in the election-bound state had also come down “substantially.”

“Following an extensive scanning of all newspapers, we have received a total of 60 complaints of paid news, in which eight complaints were not found to be of paid news,” chief electoral officer Vijay Dev told reporters in capital on Monday.

Dev said that notices had been issued to candidates in as many as 28 such cases, while 24 cases were under process for issuance of notices. None of the candidates, who were issued notices, have accepted paying for news.

“Candidates who have been served notices, include Congress candidates Arvinder Singh Lovely and Sushil Gupta,” Dev said.

Asserting that due to “intense enforcement” of model code of conduct by the commission, Dev said the liquor sales in the state have reduced “substantially”, in comparison to the sales last year during the same period.

According to the commission, during the first week November 8-14, when the code kicked in, the beer sales were down by 60 per cent, Indian-made foreign liquor by 80 per cent and country-made liquor by 40 per cent.

Similarly, for the second week November 15- 21, beer was down by 64.9 per cent, IMFL by 85 per cent and country-made liquor by 48.9 per cent, and during Nov. 22-29, beer was down by 46 per cent, IMFL by 79 per cent and country-made liquor by 36 per cent.