With the Election Commission announcing the election schedule for the general elections, the country gets into election mode for the next couple of months. The Election Commission in a move to bring better candidates before the masses to vote for has made it compulsory for candidates contesting polls to advertise their criminal antecedents in the TC and newspaper at least three times during election campaigns.

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The directions for this move were announced in October last year and it will be used for the first time in these general election scheduled to be held from April 11 to May 19.

The political parties will also have to give publicity of the criminal records of their candidates which would impact the candidates with criminal records getting tickets.

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The candidates will have to fill up an amended form number 26 and they will also have to inform their parties about their criminal records and cases in which they have been convicted along with the cases where the trials are pending.

The EC said that all political parties will be “obliged” to upload the candidates’ criminal records on their website.

(With PTI inputs)