Hyderabad: In all, 11 political parties in the State contesting the elections have been given time slots on the Government media of All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan.
Out of them, seven are national parties—Congress, BJP, NCP, All-India Trinamool Congress, BSP, CPI and CPM. The remaining are all state recognised parties AIMIM, TRS, Telugu Desam and YSRCP.
The period of broadcasts/telecasts will be between the last day of filing nominations and two days before the polling. The Prasar Bharati Corporation (PBC) will decide the actual date and time for the broadcasts and telecasts, subject to the technical constraints governing actual time of transmission available.
A communication from the Election Commission says each of the national parties and recognised state parties is allotted a base time of 45 minutes.
Additional time is allowed on the basis of the poll performance in the Constituencies that fell in Telangana, in the last Assembly elections 2014 in the united Andhra Pradesh. In a single session of broadcast/telecast, no party will be allowed more than 15 minutes.
The parties will be issued “time vouchers” in the denomination of five minutes and they will be free to combine vouchers suitably.
While a total of 990 minutes of time has been set aside on AIR and another 990 minutes on Doordarshan for the 11 parties, a maximum 245 minutes is given to Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on AIR and 245 minutes and on Doordarshan. The Congress and Telugu Desam are given 192 minutes 130 minutes respectively each on AIR and Doordarshan.
The other parties are given time slots as follows: BJP 86 minutes each on AIR and Doordarshan, BSP 53 minutes on each, CPM 54 minutes on each, CPI 50 minutes on each; the AIMIM, YSRCP, AITC and NCP 45 minutes on AIR each and 45 minutes on Doordarshan each.
The parties will be required to submit the transcripts and recording in advance. They can get the speeches recorded in private studios, meeting the PBC-prescribed technical standards, or at All-India Radio/Doordarshan Kendra, Hyderabad, as per the timings indicated by AIR/ Doordarshan in advance.
The leaders of political parties will have to follow some dos and dont’s while speaking on AIR/ Doordarshan. They should abstain from criticising other countries, religious sentiments, obscene or defamatory comments, inciting of violence, anything amounting to contempt of Court, aspersions against the integrity of the President and judiciary and against the unity and sovereignty and integrity of the nation and criticism by name of any person.
In addition, the Prasar Bharati Corporation will organise two panel discussions or debates on AIR and Doordarshan. Each political party can nominate one representative to participate in the programme. The Election Commission will approve the names of coordinators for these discussions in consultation with PBC.
The tradition of making the time available on AIR and Doordarshan to political parties during elections was started in 1998 under EC directions. (INN)