India General Elections: Social media's influence on voters

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From deleting accounts to blocking people - Indian elections are keeping social media companies busy. With the widespread reach of political content on social networks, will the Election Commission of India be able to ensure free and fair elections? Our correspondent Ravinder Bawa finds out.

Millions of social media users in India are being flooded with political content these days. Its election season and political parties are using all the tools they can to woo the voter.

DEEPALI VOTER "I look at the social media content from my perspective. I ask myself how I am benefiting from this message."

RACHNA SHARMA VOTER "Sometimes we get fake messages that you should vote for a particular party because it will be beneficial for you, but such messages have a negative impact."

AMIT VOTER "When we swipe on Facebook, we are flooded with political content from various political parties. I would say social media is full of election content."

Election Commission of India has announced that digital platforms have to adhere to the model code of conduct.

S. Y. QURAISHI FORMER ELECTION COMMISSIONER OF INDIA "When the content itself, we should follow rules and regulation. It should not be incendiary. It should not lead to hate speech, communal cast appeal. The second is expenditure, any penny spent on any media including social media has to be accounted for."

RAVINDER BAWA DELHI "There is a cap on expenditure by individuals. But there is no cap on political parties. It's obvious that the present government is in a position to mobilise more funds that skew the election in their favour. It will be a challenge for the Election Commission is to monitor expenditure of political parties, especially on digital platforms."

Social media companies have agreed to carry only pre-certified political ads and share the cost of these ads with the commission. But the activists believe this is is not enough.

VIPUL MUDGAL SOCIAL ACTIVIST "We understand that 70 percent worlds social media traffic passes through google, twitter and Facebook then I think there should be some responsibility somewhere particularly when it comes to elections."

With about 500 million Indians using the internet, these steps taken to ensure free and fair election seem inadequate. Ravinder Bawa, Delhi.