Political parties, it appears, are violating the Election Commission's directive of not engaging children for election campaigning and related activities.
The Election Commission had issued an order on November 6 to reiterate its 2009 guidelines, which said that using children in election related activities would constitute as child labour and as such would be in violation of its guidelines as well as violation of several legislation, including the Juvenile Justice Act.
However, media images of recent rallies and campaign trails show that political parties are in violation of this guideline. At a recent rally in Jaipur, Rajasthan, children were seen waving flags and sloganeering for the Congress.
While the Commission’s observers have been vigilant on monitoring the expenditure of political parties, they have not going easy on enforcing their own guidelines regarding children’s presence in the election arena.
