Understanding polls:The Chief Election Commissioner was addressing an international conference in New Delhi on Monday.PTIPTI

Inclusive elections truthfully reflect the expression of the collective will of the people and are a hallmark of democracy, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said here on Monday even as he stressed the challenges of social media and their intersection with election management bodies (EMBs).

The EMBs, the CEC said, expected social media platforms to use their “algorithm power, to proactively red-flag fake news”.

His comments came at a two-day international conference on the “Role, framework and capacity of election management bodies” organised by the Election Commission (EC) under the ‘Cohort on Election Integrity’ led by the Commission and established as a follow-on to the ‘Summit for Democracy’ held in December last year.

To preserve freedoms

Speaking on the pressing challenges before the EMBs today, Mr. Kumar stressed their intersection with social media platforms. “More early or deeper red-flagging of fake news based on known modus operandi and genres is not an unfair expectation from the EMBs,” he said. Such a proactive approach to counter fake news would facilitate “credible electoral outcomes” that would help preserve “freedoms” which these platforms required to thrive.

He said that free, fair, inclusive, accessible and inducement-free elections, a cornerstone of democratic polity, were a precondition to peace and developmental dividends. These threshold concepts, he said, embody the understanding that sovereignty belongs to and flows from the people of a country.

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