A political activist filed a complaint with the Election Commission against a local English daily on Sunday, accusing it of running a campaign through its articles to malign the image of Edwin Cardozo, an Independent candidate from Navelim in south Goa.
This is the first complaint filed with the Election Commission about suspected paid news. The complaint filed by Valentino Dias with the Media Monitoring Committee said an article, based on a single issue, seemed manufactured and planted to create fear in the minds of voters.
“Such a consistent misinformation campaign through these articles that have appeared on successive days (almost every day) against one candidate violates the code of conduct for the media and comes under the category of paid news,” he said.
Goa Congress president and former Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro, who lost in the 2012 Assembly elections from Navelim, is contesting again from there. He is facing a tough time after he resisted attempts to get the Congress to align itself with the Goa Forward Party against the BJP.
