New Delhi: In a relief to Congress president Rahul Gandhi, the Election Commission (EC) on Sunday night withdrew its order against him over a prima facie violation of model code of conduct (MCC) on the grounds that he gave television interviews one day before second phase of Gujarat elections.
Additionally, the EC formed a committee to examine the provisions of Section 126 of Representation of People’s Act, which deals with prohibition of public meetings, displaying or propagating election-related matter 48 hours ending with hour fixed for conclusion of the poll.
“The Commission is of the considered view that due to multifold expansion of digital and electronic media, the extant of MCC, section 126 of RP Act, 1951 and other related provisions require revisiting to cater to the requirement and challenges of the current and emerging situations,” the EC said in an order dated Sunday sent to Congress and added that a committee was being formed to look into it.
“In the light of the foregoing observation, the above notice dated 13 December 2017 given to Rahul Gandhi, star campaigner, Congress is hereby withdrawn,” it added.
The EC conveyed about the committee to the BJP too in a similar communication. It conveyed the ruling party that in context of complaints of releasing manifesto a day before first phase of polling and noted that there is a lack of instruction around time limit for release of election manifestoes.
Meanwhile, the committee set up by EC to look into section 126 of the Representation of People’s Act will include representation from Election Commission of India, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Ministry of Law and Justice, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology with representatives of National Broadcasters Associations (NBA), representative of Press Council of India (PCI).
“The Commission had sought the legal opinion and it was opined that “the increasing changes in the technology of communication makes it necessary that the administration and preferably the Law Commission should have another look at the Section and clarify its limits,” said another order by the EC announcing setting up of the committee.
“If the section is read widely and any person can file complaint by wide interpretation of “an election matter”, the Election Commission and the Courts will be flooded with complaints arising out of the intensify of an election campaign and the bitterness it may evoke. It is suggested that the prosecution should be initiated only in the manner adopted in Section 32 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950,” it added.
It also noted that in multi-phase elections, “there would be situation when the prohibitory period of 48 hours mentioned in Section 126 would be in force in some constituencies even as campaigning would be continuing in other polling areas”.
It specially took note of how a re-look needs to be made in an age of advancement in communication technology as well as rise in social media and that enforcing it would “require universal scrutiny of plethora of social media platforms, large number of TV channels, etc., requiring huge manpower/other technical infrastructure and involving huge cost on one hand and criminalising a large number of stakeholders in the process.”
