Guwahati, March 17: Political parties and candidates in Assam are trying all means - from accounts in Facebook and Twitter to having one's own blog or mobile apps - to attract voters ahead of the next month's Assembly elections.

However, any update on an online media platform to seek votes within 48 hours from the elections might attract punitive action, as is in the case of normal campaigning.

The Election Commission has asked all deputy commissioners to make sure that the same code of conduct as that of normal campaigning is adhered to by the parties and the candidates while campaigning on social media platforms.

"Normally, all campaigning is prohibited before 48 hours of polls. The same rule will now be in force for the use of social media platforms too," a source in the chief electoral office, Assam, here told The Telegraph today.

Elections to the 126 constituencies will be conducted in two phases, on April 4 and 11.

The source said the instructions were issued according to the Election Commission's guidelines issued in 2013.

The guidelines said legal provisions relating to election campaigning apply to social media the way they do to any other form of campaign. According to the notification circulated to election officials in all the districts, candidates should inform the commission about their authentic social media accounts while filing their nomination papers.

They will have to ensure that all the political advertisements they release to any Internet-based media or social media website are pre-certified by the Election Commission-appointed media certification and monitoring committees at the district and state levels before they are used.

"The expenditure on election campaign through any advertisement on social media is a part of all expenditure connected to the elections. This, among other things, shall include payments made to Internet companies and websites for carrying advertisements and also campaign-related operational expenditure on making of creative development of content, operational expenditure on salaries and wages paid to the team of workers employed by such candidates and parties to maintain their social media accounts," said the Election Commission's guidelines, copies of which have been circulated to all the deputy commissioners' offices.

The use of social media by politicians and political parties in Assam increased after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi increasingly used social media platforms for campaigning.

From chief minister Tarun Gogoi to BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma (former minister in the Gogoi cabinet), PCC president Anjan Dutta (not contesting polls), the BJP's chief ministerial candidate and Union sports minister Sarbananda Sonowal to MLAs Raju Sahu and AASU leader-turned-BJP candidate (in Sonari) Tapan Kumar Gogoi - politicians are making all- out efforts in the social media to influence voters.