City-based lawyers’ organisation Adhivakta Parishad is keeping a close watch on candidates to see whether any of them is campaigning on the basis of religion, community, origin, language or belief.

“According to Section 123 of Representation of People Act (1951), campaigning on the basis of religion, belief, language, community or origin is an offence and a corrupt practice. This can lead to disqualification of candidature,” said M P Bendre, president of Adhivakta Parishad (Pune).

Launching a novel project in the city last week, the Parishad — an association of lawyers, law professors and law students— have deputed a team of five to seven advocates in each of the eight constituencies in Pune.

“These teams will keep track of candidates, their volunteers, political parties and media to see if anyone is campaigning on the basis of community, religion, language and origin,” Bendre said.

Other than candidates’ campaigns, newspaper and television mentioning details about caste distribution of a constituency is also included in this Act, he added.

These days, candidates promise development for people of a particular caste or religion, said advocate Ramrao Deshmukh, who is monitoring Kothrud constituency. “There are fights among Shiv Sena, MNS, NCP on this basis. It is high time we made the people and candidates aware that it is a corrupt practice,” he said.

The teams from various constituencies have already started recording such offences. “After we held a primary meeting in our constituency, the response we got is good. Even people have volunteered to point out such instances. As of now we have recorded three instances,” said advocate Chandrakant Kulkarni, who is part of the team deputed in Parvati constituency.

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