Use of Government Property for Political Meeting and Campaigning

The political parties or candidates are not allowed to use public places like maidans, helipads, etc for holding public meetings.

For this purpose, political parties and candidates are allowed to use public or government-owned spaces such as playgrounds of schools, colleges and other educational institutions or other such public properties, provided that¹:

• Academic calendar of school/college is not disturbed under any circumstances.
• The school/college management has no objection, and prior permission for such campaigning is obtained from them as well as Sub Divisional Officer concerned.
• Such permission is granted on first-come-first served basis and no political party is allowed to monopolize use of such grounds.
• There is no order/direction of any court prohibiting use of any such premise/ground.
• The political parties/candidates/campaigners shall ensure that the MCC is not violated.
• The political party or candidate who has been allowed to use the school grounds will have to ensure that no damage is done to the to the ground. If there is any damage then they must pay appropriate compensation to the school authorities.

Private property can also be used for campaigning for political meetings but they will have to take permission from the owners.

If a person does not take permission from the owner of the property (public or private), it would be a crime where the person will be punished with jail time upto 3 months and/or a fine.

1. Chapter 12, Manual on Model Code of Conduct, available at https://eci.gov.in/files/file/9375-manual-on-model-code-of-conduct/[↩]