This election season, the social media may no longer provide a battleground to political parties and their candidates.

While parties have, in the past, made subtle and obvious barbs at each other on Twitter and Facebook, repeating that could now land them in trouble.

With the Model Code of Conduct in place, the office of the chief electoral officer of Delhi (Delhi CEO) has warned that candidates could face action should their social media content qualify as defamatory.

As social media offers a multitude of platforms for candidates to interact on, the Delhi CEO said while monitoring the activities of everyone would be nearly impossible, the candidates fielded by parties for the Capital's seven parliamentary seats would be kept under a strict check.

"Candidates have to declare their social media accounts in their affidavits. While it is very difficult to keep a check on every single activity that goes on the social media, we act on intelligence reports that claim that candidates have indulged in defamatory activities," said Ankur Garg, chief nodal officer.

"During the Assembly polls, in December, with nearly 900 candidates, it was difficult to keep a check on each and every account. This time, with just seven parliamentary constituencies in the city, it will be easier," he added.

Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has already reportedly fallen prey to spurious activity on social media, has approached Facebook and Twitter against fake pages created in the party's name that host content bordering on the defamatory.

"We have 200 genuine pages and 4,500 spurious pages," explained an AAP worker, "wherein parties or people have written untrue content or have been defamatory towards others.

"We had informed the Election Commission about the same earlier and have now written to Facebook and Twitter to have the accounts verified. Some of the spurious pages have defamatory content and for the upcoming Lok Sabha Polls, we are taking adequate steps to ensure that there is maximum verification as far as our social network campaign goes," the worker added.