EC row over election code ‘avoidable’, says poll chief

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora yesterday termed as “unsavoury and avoidable” a controversy over the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa’s letter to him on this.

Arora said the commission will meet on Tuesday to “discuss this and related matters”.

In a statement, Arora said: “There has been an unsavoury and avoidable controversy reported in sections of the media today about the internal functioning of Election Commission of India with respect to the handling of the Model Code of Conduct. This has come at a time when all the CEOs (chief electoral officers) and their teams across the country are geared towards the seventh and last phase of polling tomorrow followed by the gigantic task of counting on May 23.”

He said that the last EC meeting on May 14 “unanimously decided” that some groups would be formed to discuss the issues, which arose in the course of this year’s elections, just as it was done after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

“The Model Code of Conduct (MCC) was one of the 13 issues/ areas which were identified,” he added.

The poll chief insisted that Lavasa’s letter was an internal matter of the poll panel.

“It needs to be clarified categorically and unambiguously that this is purely an internal matter of ECI and as such any

speculation, innuendos and insinuations in this regard should be eschewed.”

Arora said there had been differences between the EC members in the past, but he believed that “eloquence of silence” was far more desirable “than creating ill-timed controversies”.

“The three members of the ECI are not expected to be templates or clones of each other. There have been so many times in the past when there has been a vast diversion of views as it can and should be,” he said.

“But the same largely remained within the confines of ECI till demission of office. Unless appearing much later in a book written by the concerned ECs (election commissioners) or CECs.”

Arora said he had personally never shied away from a public debate whenever required “but there is time for everything”.

“There was a reason I told a leading daily a few days back, that eloquence of silence is always difficult but far more desirable to see the election process through, instead of creating ill-timed controversies.”

Arora said all the chief electoral officers and senior EC officials have given their utmost in the last six phases of the elections, “which barring an odd incident here or there, have been largely peaceful and conducted in a fair, free and transparent manner.”

In his letter to Arora, Lavasa recused himself from attending full commission meetings held to decide on MCC violations, after his dissent on the clean chit given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BharatiyaJanataParty president Amit Shah on their respective speeches, went unrecorded.

Lavasa, in his letter, insisted that he would attend the EC meetings if his minority decisions were also included in the orders of the commission.

The three-member “full commission” consists of the CEC and two election commissioners, Lavasa and Sushil Chandra.

Federal Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad refused to comment on the controversy and said reports of rifts in the EC were its internal matter.

“It is an internal matter of the EC and it is not proper to say anything,” Prasad said.

However, the Congress Party attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the controversy.

Congress spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala called it “a daylight murder of constitutional norms, set conventions and propriety.”

He said the poll panel’s rules express preference for the unanimous view, but provide for a majority ruling in the absence of unanimity.

“Being a constitutional body, the minority view has to be recorded, but this is being trampled to protect Modi-Shah duo,” the Congress leader said.

Omitting the dissent of Lavasa, simply because he had asked for a notice to be issued to Modi, had severely tarnished the EC’s institutional integrity, Surjewala said.

According to him, the Congress had filed 11 complaints to the EC about the brazen poll code violation by Modi and Shah, but the complaints were thrown in the dustbin.