Political PR · Crisis Response · Legal Removal
Political PR Agency in India
RepuLex is a political PR agency for political parties and people in public life in India: parties and their office-bearers and spokespersons, sitting and former legislators, candidates and public officials. We handle reputation and crisis response, media and interview training, digital PR through editorial outreach with no paid placements, monitoring in English, Hindi and regional languages, and the legal removal of deepfakes, morphed images, impersonation accounts and defamatory content through our partner law firm.
It is the reputation side of public life, not the campaign side: no war rooms, booth data, voter surveys or ad buying. Honest criticism, satire and accurate reporting stay up; what we act on is the false, the fabricated and the impersonated. An NDA is signed before any matter is discussed.
The Offer
What political PR covers at RepuLex
Five lines of work, run as one engagement or separately, for political parties and their office-bearers and spokespersons, sitting and former MPs, MLAs and MLCs, candidates and public officials. For a serving member of the All India Services, rule 17 of the All India Services (Conduct) Rules 1968 requires the government’s previous sanction before going to court or to the press to vindicate an official act that has been criticised or attacked, so the sanction comes before any court step or press statement about that act and the work is sequenced around it. The routes by office are set out in online reputation management for politicians.
Reputation and crisis response
When an allegation, a leaked clip or a coordinated wave of posts breaks, we triage it the same day: what is being said, where it is spreading, and which parts are false statements of fact rather than opinion. The response is a short factual record the client can stand behind and, where content is unlawful, the legal steps below, taken in parallel rather than after the news cycle has moved on. Emergency handling carries a 50% premium.
Digital PR, editorial outreach only
Accurate profiles, statements, interviews and opinion pieces that put the record in front of the people searching for it, with a Wikipedia and Google Knowledge Panel record kept inside those platforms' own rules. Press work for a political client is editorial outreach only: we pitch the story and offer the interview or the opinion piece, and the journalist is free to decline. We arrange no wire syndication, brand-desk feature, sponsored content or other paid placement for a political client, because a paid piece that promotes a person in politics is political advertising, which this offer does not include.
Legal removal through the partner law firm
Deepfakes, morphed images, impersonation accounts and defamatory content are taken down by the legal route. RepuLex files the platform complaints under the IT Rules 2021 on day one; our partner law firm, Unified Chambers And Associates, serves notices under an advocate's signature and applies to court for takedown and disclosure orders where a platform will not act. A criminal complaint for defamation is the client's own, and we prepare the evidence for it.
Monitoring during sessions and elections
Search results, news, social platforms and AI answers are watched in English, Hindi and the regional languages the constituency or state needs, through a legislative session, an election or a live controversy, with alerts as new material appears and evidence captured with its date, time and URL, so a complaint or a court application rests on a record that holds up. Monitoring runs for a fixed period agreed at the outset.
Media and interview training
Leaders and party spokespersons are prepared for the press conferences, television debates and interviews in which the false material will be put to them: the verified record on each contested point, how to answer without repeating the false claim, what can be said about a matter already before a court, and one consistent line across everyone who speaks for the client. It prepares for editorial appearances; coverage itself is never promised.
Each line is also a service in its own right: online crisis management, digital PR, deepfake and morphed photo removal and reputation monitoring.
Outside the Offer
What political PR at RepuLex does not include
Much of what is sold as political PR in India is election-campaign management. That is a different business, and we do not do it.
Campaign management
War rooms, booth management, constituency mapping, canvassing, rallies, election-day communication, WhatsApp group operations and campaign strategy.
Voter data
Voter databases, voter surveys, opinion polling and micro-targeting.
Campaign advertising
Buying or running political advertisements. Pre-certification before a media certification and monitoring committee is the campaign's own step.
Bots and fake accounts
Automated accounts, fake profiles or paid amplification made to look organic.
Attack content
Opposition research, smear material or any content about a rival candidate or party.
Paid placements
Paid news, advertorials, sponsored content, brand-desk features or wire releases, in any publication.
Removing lawful speech
Honest criticism of a record in office, opinion, satire and accurate reporting stay up.
Electoral promises
Any prediction or promise about votes, seats or results.
The line is legal as well as commercial. Under R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu, (1994) 6 SCC 632, a public official cannot recover damages for a publication about official conduct unless it is proved false and made with reckless disregard for the truth. Every item is assessed against that standard before engagement, and what is criticism rather than falsehood is declined.
RepuLex is non-partisan. It takes a matter on the content, not the party, and it never names a client. The public-official standard, the defamation exceptions and the routes by office are set out in Can politicians sue for defamation in India?
Election Law
The election-period rules a political client must know
From the day the Election Commission of India announces the schedule until the process is complete, a political client’s online presence runs under rules that bear hardest on candidates and parties. What follows is paraphrased from the Commission’s own documents and the Representation of the People Act 1951, listed at the end of this section. We work inside these rules, and we tell a client when a step is theirs to take.
The Model Code of Conduct applies online
The Model Code of Conduct is enforced from the date the Election Commission of India announces the election schedule and stays operational until the election process is complete. Criticism of other parties is to be confined to their policies, programme, past record and work; criticism of private life unconnected with public activity is to be avoided, and so is criticism based on unverified allegations or distortion. The Commission's instruction of 25 October 2013 applies the Code and its related instructions to content that candidates and parties post on the internet, including social media.
Every statement, interview and opinion piece we draft for a political client during an election is written inside those limits: it speaks to the client's own record, never to a rival's private life.
Political advertisements need pre-certification
The Commission's standing orders, reiterated for each election, require any registered party, group or association, and any candidate or individual, to apply to a Media Certification and Monitoring Committee for pre-certification of every political advertisement on electronic media, social media included, before it is published: a candidate or individual to the District committee, a party headquartered in a State or Union territory to the State committee, with an appeal to a committee headed by the Chief Electoral Officer. The committees also keep watch for suspected paid news. For polling day and the day before, the Commission has required print advertisements to be pre-certified as well.
A candidate declares their authentic social media accounts in the nomination affidavit, and spending on internet and social media campaigning, including content development and the cost of running the accounts, belongs in the election expenditure account under section 77(1) of the Representation of the People Act 1951. RepuLex neither buys nor runs political advertising; where a piece of content would be a political advertisement, the campaign takes it to the committee.
The 48-hour silence period: section 126
Section 126 of the Representation of the People Act 1951 bars public meetings and processions in connection with an election, and bars displaying any election matter to the public by cinematograph, television or other similar apparatus, in a polling area during the forty-eight hours ending with the hour fixed for the conclusion of the poll. Election matter means any matter intended or calculated to influence or affect the result of an election, and a contravention is punishable with imprisonment of up to two years, a fine, or both.
The Commission's release of 19 April 2026 reiterated the silence period and said media platforms, including television, radio, print and social media, must strictly adhere to it; under the platforms' Voluntary Code of Ethics of 20 March 2019, a valid notice from the Commission of a section 126 violation is acknowledged or processed within three hours. In a multi-phase election, the Commission has said the section does not reach content about a later phase that makes no reference to the polling area under silence. We place nothing for a client that could be election matter in a polling area during its silence period.
False statements about a candidate: section 123(4)
The publication by a candidate, their agent or any other person with the consent of a candidate or their election agent, of a false statement of fact about the personal character or conduct of any candidate, which the publisher believes to be false or does not believe to be true, and which is reasonably calculated to prejudice that candidate's prospects, is a corrupt practice under section 123(4). It is tested in an election petition before the High Court after the result, where a corrupt practice by or with the consent of the returned candidate or their election agent is a ground for declaring the election void.
It is therefore not a takedown route during a campaign. The takedown routes are the platform lanes and the courts, set out below.
AI-generated content must be labelled
The Commission's release of 19 April 2026 requires parties, candidates and campaign representatives to label any synthetically generated or AI-altered campaign content as "AI-Generated", "Digitally Enhanced" or "Synthetic Content", with the originating entity disclosed, and records its direction that misleading or unlawful AI-generated or manipulated content be acted on within three hours of being brought to a platform's notice. Its letter of 6 May 2024 to recognised parties requires a party that finds a deepfake on its own handle to take it down within three hours, and to report look-alike accounts to the platform and, if they stay up, to the Grievance Appellate Committee.
Sources, read 26 September 2026
- ECI: Model Code of Conduct FAQ
- ECI press note of 2 April 2024 (section 126; social media instructions of 25 October 2013)
- ECI letter to parties of 6 May 2024 (deepfakes)
- PIB, 20 March 2026: pre-certification by MCMC
- PIB, 19 April 2026: ECI action on unlawful social media content
- Representation of the People Act 1951 (CEO Delhi copy)
Takedown Clocks
How fast a platform must act on political content
The IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, as amended with effect from 20 February 2026, give a platform a different clock for each kind of content. Which lane an item falls in decides how fast it can come down.
| What it is | Route | Clock |
|---|---|---|
| A morphed image or deepfake that impersonates the client, or an account posing as the client | Complaint by the client or someone on their behalf, IT Rules 2021 Rule 3(2)(b) | Two hours from the complaint |
| A page or account impersonating a party, a campaign or an organisation rather than an individual | Grievance under Rule 3(2)(a)(i): impersonation is Rule 3(1)(b)(vi) | 36 hours |
| A post stating a false fact about the client (defamation) | Grievance under Rule 3(2)(a)(i): defamation sits in sub-clause (xi), outside the 36-hour lane | Acknowledged within 24 hours, resolved within seven days |
| Content covered by a court order or a reasoned government intimation | Rule 3(1)(d) | Three hours from receipt |
| Misleading or unlawful AI-generated or manipulated content during an election | Direction of the Election Commission, recorded in its release of 19 April 2026 | Three hours after it is brought to the platform's notice |
A complaint starts the platform's clock, but it does not by itself make a platform answerable for keeping content up. Since Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, (2015) 5 SCC 1, the actual knowledge that obliges an intermediary to take content down under section 79 of the Information Technology Act 2000 comes from a court order or a government direction, not a private notice, which is why the partner law firm goes to court when a platform declines.
A political deepfake that a platform does not accept as impersonation, such as an AI clip that attaches a false claim to a leader, is still defamation under section 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 (formerly sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code) and, where it is a false electronic record made to harm reputation, forgery under section 336(4); it comes down on a court order, which Rule 3(1)(d) gives the platform three hours to act on. A criminal complaint for defamation is made by the person aggrieved, under section 222(1) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023, before a Magistrate of the first class. Where a Union or State Minister or another public servant is defamed over conduct in the discharge of public functions, section 222(2) also lets the Public Prosecutor complain in writing directly to a Court of Session, with the government's previous sanction and within six months, and the person's own complaint before a Magistrate stays open. The civil route, a suit for an injunction and damages in the competent court, is the one that takes content down.
More in AI-generated defamation and deepfakes, removing a fake account impersonating you and BNS section 356.
The Engagement
How a political PR engagement works
NDA before anything else
A non-disclosure agreement is signed before any matter is discussed. The engagement stays confidential: RepuLex does not name clients, publish case studies that identify them, or confirm who it acts for.
Assessment
We read every item and sort it: false statement of fact, impersonation, deepfake or morphed image, other unlawful content, or lawful criticism that stays. The written assessment says what can be removed, by which route, what cannot, and what the PR and monitoring work should cover.
A fixed fee, quoted in writing
Removal is priced per URL on the published rate card: ₹99,999 per URL at standard complexity, ₹2,49,999 for 3 URLs or ₹7,49,999 for 10; news reports, court-reported matters and legal-database listings are quoted separately from ₹1,00,000 per URL. Crisis response, digital PR and monitoring are quoted as a fixed fee for a defined scope and period. There is no monthly retainer.
Advance payment, with the refund beside it
Removal fees are paid 100% in advance, paired with the refund in clause 4.5 of our terms, which is calculated per URL: 100% where a URL is not removed within the agreed timeline, including where the platform refuses; 100% where we decline the matter after assessment; 75% where the client withdraws mid-timeline, the balance being a cancellation charge. Crisis response, PR and monitoring have no URL to remove, so their payment and refund terms are set out in the engagement letter before anything is paid. No outcome is guaranteed, and no publication is promised by name.
Work begins
Platform complaints go in on day one. The partner law firm's notices and any court application follow on the timeline agreed, monitoring runs for the agreed period, and every step is reported to the client in writing.
Frequently Asked
Political PR: questions office-holders ask
Do you manage election campaigns or war rooms?+
No. RepuLex does not run election campaigns, war rooms, booth management, canvassing, voter surveys or voter databases, and it does not buy or run political advertising. Political PR here means reputation and crisis response, digital PR through editorial outreach only, legal removal of deepfakes, impersonation and defamatory content through our partner law firm, and monitoring during sessions and elections.
Can a deepfake of a politician be removed before polling day?+
Often, but never on a promised date. A deepfake or morphed image that impersonates the politician can be reported by them or on their behalf under Rule 3(2)(b) of the IT Rules 2021, which requires the platform to remove it within two hours of the complaint. During elections the Election Commission has directed that misleading or unlawful AI-generated or manipulated content be acted on within three hours of being brought to a platform's notice. Where a platform does not act, the partner law firm applies to court, and a platform must act on a court order within three hours under Rule 3(1)(d); in August 2026 the Bombay High Court made an interim order of that kind in a Union Minister's suit over deepfake videos.
Can you remove negative news or criticism about a politician?+
Not if it is true, or if it is opinion. Criticism of a record in office, honest comment, satire and accurate reporting are lawful, and under R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu (1994) a public official cannot recover damages over a publication about official conduct unless it is proved false and made with reckless disregard for the truth. What can be removed is a false statement of fact, a fabricated quote or document, a deepfake, a morphed image or an impersonation. We assess every item before engagement and decline what is criticism rather than falsehood.
Can you get a politician positive press coverage?+
We pitch stories and prepare interviews, statements and opinion pieces, but we never promise a named publication. For a political client, press work is editorial outreach only, which a journalist is free to decline: we do not arrange wire syndication, a publisher's brand-desk feature, sponsored content or any other paid placement. A paid piece that promotes a person in politics is political advertising, and during an election it falls under the Election Commission's pre-certification rules and the paid-news watch kept by its media certification and monitoring committees.
Do you work with political parties?+
Yes. RepuLex acts for political parties as organisations, for their office-bearers and spokespersons, and for individual leaders, on the same editorial-only terms. It is non-partisan: it takes a matter on the content, not on which party brings it, it produces no content about a client's opponents, and it does not name its clients or confirm who it acts for. A non-disclosure agreement is signed before any matter is discussed.
Can a political party act against false content about the party itself?+
Yes, where it is a false statement of fact. Explanation 2 to section 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita says an imputation concerning an association or collection of persons as such can be defamation, and a political party is an association of persons; the imputation must be about the party as an identifiable body. A page or account impersonating the party goes to the platform as a grievance, which it must resolve within 36 hours, and a deepfake of a party leader is that leader's own complaint, with a two-hour clock. Criticism of a manifesto or a record in government is protected opinion and stays up.
Do you offer media and interview training for leaders and spokespersons?+
Yes. Leaders and party spokespersons are prepared for press conferences, television debates and interviews: the verified record on each contested allegation, how to answer without repeating the false claim, what can be said about a matter already before a court, and one consistent line across everyone who speaks for the client. It prepares for editorial appearances and promises no coverage.
Do you monitor regional-language media?+
Yes. Monitoring covers news sites, social and video platforms and AI answers in English, Hindi and the regional languages the constituency or state needs, for the leader's name, the party's name and its official handles, with each new item logged by date, time and URL and reported in writing.
How is political PR priced, and is there a monthly retainer?+
There is no monthly retainer. Removal is priced per URL, ₹99,999 at standard complexity, with news and court-reported URLs quoted separately from ₹1,00,000; crisis response, digital PR and monitoring are quoted as a fixed fee for a defined scope after assessment. Removal fees are paid 100% in advance, and 100% is refunded for any URL not removed within the agreed timeline, including where the platform refuses. The payment and refund terms for a crisis-response, PR or monitoring scope, which has no URL to remove, are set out in the engagement letter before anything is paid.
Page updated
Discuss a political reputation matter in confidence.
NDA before any case discussion. Fixed fee, no monthly retainer, refund on any URL not removed in time.