Rival candidates in paid news cases

IN Media Watch Briefs | 13/12/2012

The Election Commission has issued notices to two candidates from Junagadh constituency — the BJP’s sitting MLA Mahendra Mashru and the Congress’s Bikhabhai Joshi — for allegedly paying for coverage in a number of local newspapers. In the notice to Mashru, the Election Commission has asked him why Rs 76,220 should not be included in his campaign finances against the payment he had made the articles that had appeared in five local newspapers last week. In Joshi’s case, the sum involved is Rs 95,550; the committee has asked him, too, why this should not be included in his campaign finances.

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