Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission on Monday advised political parties to refrain using children in any form whatsoever during their campaigning, including the distribution of flyers and pamphlets and sloganeering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a letter sent to political parties, the poll panel expressed its zero tolerance for parties and candidates using children in any way throughout the election process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The poll watchdog said politicians and candidates should not in any way use children for campaign activities, such as carrying a child in a car or holding one in their arms during rallies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Election Commission said in a statement that the prohibition extends to the use of children to create the semblance of a political campaign in any manner including use through poem, songs, spoken words, display of insignia of political party or candidate, will be tolrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ECI cited a case of Chetan Ramlal Bhutada vs State of Maharashtra and Others, the Bombay High Court issued an order in August 2014 that stated political parties had to make sure minors were not involved in election-related activities. The ECI cited this order as well as the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016, while issueing this guideline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, it also said, a straightforward fact that if a child is with their parent or guardian when they are near a political figure who is not engaged in any election campaigning by the political party will not be seen as a breach of the rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The chief electoral commissioner, Rajiv Kumar, has repeatedly underlined the importance of political parties as the primary stakeholders in the electoral commission and urged them to actively participate in preserving democratic norms, particularly in light of the upcoming parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, this instruction came one month after the ECI instructed political parties to treat individuals with disabilities with respect during their campaigns. The poll body gave parties instructions in December 2023 not to use phrases that are disparaging or ableist when referring to individuals with impairments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The ECI today issued an order which cited political leaders and candidates should not use children for campaign activities in any manner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":500987,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1497,125714],"tags":[71308,1987,161897,161896,1637,131914,93482],"yst_prominent_words":[],"ppma_author":[140543],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/apnlive\/uploads\/2024\/02\/05173451\/ezgif-5-242649e9b0-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":140543,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"apnnewsdesk","display_name":"APN Live","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/478eacb893eda88aa6ed8d99b005bf58?s=96&r=g"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500985"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500985"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=500985"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=500985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}