Lavasa’s letter: EC to meet on Tuesday

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora on Saturday termed as “unsavoury and avoidable” the controversy surrounding the recording of minority decisions on the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa’s letter to him in this regard.

He said an Election Commission (EC) meeting was scheduled onTuesday to “discuss this and related matters”.

   

In a statement issued here, Arora said: “There has beenan unsavoury and avoidable controversy reported in sections of the media todayabout the internal functioning of Election Commission of India with respect tothe handling of the Model Code of Conduct.”

“This has come at a time when all the CEOs (ChiefElectoral Officers) and their teams across the country are geared towards theseventh and last phase of polling tomorrow followed by the gigantic task ofcounting on May 23,” he said.

The statement said that the last EC meeting on May 14″unanimously decided” that some groups shall be formed to deliberatethe issues, which arose in the course of the conduct of Lok Sabha Elections2019, just as it was done after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

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

The CEC insisted that Lavasa’s letter on the MCC was aninternal matter of the poll panel. “It needs to be clarified categoricallyand unambiguously that this is purely an internal matter of ECI and as such anyspeculation, innuendos and insinuations in this regard should beeschewed,” it said.

Arora said there had been differences between the ElectionCommission (EC) members in the past, but he believed that “eloquence ofsilence” was far more desirable “than creating ill-timedcontroversies”.

“The three members of the ECI are not expected to betemplates or clones of each other. There have been so many times in the pastwhen there has been a vast diversion of views as it can and should be.

“But the same largely remained within the confines ofECI till demission of office. Unless appearing much later in a book written bythe concerned ECs (Election Commissioners) or CECs,” he said.

In his letter to Arora, Lavasa recused himself fromattending Full Commission meetings held to decide on MCC violations, after hisdissent on the clean chit given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJPPresident Amit Shah on their respective speeches, went unrecorded.

Lavasa, in his letter, insisted that he would attend the ECmeetings if his minority decisions were also included in the orders of theCommission.The three-member “Full Commission”consists of the CEC and two Election Commissioners, Ashok Lavasa and SushilChandra.

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