Raut reviews election preparations in Raj

Director General of Election Commission, Akshay Raut, today reviewed preparations of upcoming assembly elections in Rajasthan with the district election officers through video conferencing.
He reviewed the activities under Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation programme of the commission and asked them to make more efforts for awareness particularly among the young, an official release said.
Raut pointed out that, despite improvement, there is a scope of enhancing enrolment of youths and women in voter list and asked the district election officers to make efforts for the same, it said.
He also asked the officers to set up district-level committees latest by July 7 to monitor paid news.

Later, Raut, in a discussion with newsmen, expressed concern over the paid news and said that the commission was committed to address the issue.
He said that if a publication or media house supports a particular candidate and gives priority to him on the basis of ideology (money may not be involved), this would also be counted as election expenditure of the candidate because such practice is not healthy and may have adverse impact on the rival candidates.