23 paid news cases in Delhi

New Delhi: Delhi`s Election Commission has detected 23 cases of paid news against 16 candidates, including Revenue Minister Arvinder Singh and Mukesh Sharma, Parliamentary Secretary to Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, and added the expenditures in this regard in their poll expenses. The Delhi EC has passed orders to include Rs 24,407 and Rs 39,061 in the poll expenses of Singh and Sharma respectively. Singh is contesting from Gandhi Nagar while Sharma is a sitting MLA from Uttam Nagar constituency.

Two instances of paid news have been found against Congress MLA Sumesh Shokeen, who is contesting from Matiala constituency and Rs 62,650 added in his poll expenses. Rs 19,582 have been added in the poll expenses of BJP councillor and candidate from Matiala constituency Rajesh Gehlot. Six instances of paid news have been found against BJP candidate from Tilak Nagar, Rajiv Babbar, and Rs 20,621 have been added in his poll expenses. Out of 16 candidates, six are from Congress, eight from BJP and two are from BSP. The other BJP candidates against whom inclusion of amount has been passed are Neel Daman Khatri (Narela- Rs 17,500) and Jai Prakash (Sadar Bazar - Rs 4,893), Manoj Kumar Shokeen (Nangloi Jat - Rs10,710), Subhash Sachdeva (Moti Nagar - Rs 21,834), Parvesh Sahib Singh (Mehrauli - Rs 8,223) and Pawan Sharma (Uttam Nagar - Rs 6,116). Congress candidates include Sushil Gupta ( Moti Nagar - Rs 9,786), Amit Malik (Narela- expense not mentioned) and Ashok Kumar Jain ( Delhi Cantt - Rs 6,476) BSP candidates are Dheeraj Kumar Tokas (R K Puram - Rs 18,019) and Md Saleem Saify (Nangloi Jat - Rs 9,817) against whom two cases were detected. As far as action against electronic/print media is concerned for paid news, Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Vijay Dev said a detailed report would be sent to the Election Commission after the electoral process gets over. "The EC will further interact with the Press Council of India and the appropriate broadcasting authority for action against media houses," said Dev. PTI