BackAshok Chavan found guilty of inaccurate election expenditure
EC gives the Congress leader to explain why he should not be disqualified over allegations of 'paid news'
Premium
New Delhi: The Election Commission (EC) on Sunday held former Maharashtra chief minister and senior Congress party leader Ashok Chavan guilty of providing inaccurate elections expenditure details to it, in an embarrassing development for the Congress party just months before crucial assembly elections in the state.
At the same time, the commission issued a notice to Chavan, giving him 20 days to respond as to why he should not be disqualified in a case over allegations of “paid news"—when candidates pay publishers or broadcasters to carry advertisements cloaked as news.
The charges refer to the Maharashtra assembly elections of 2009 that Chavan won from Bhokar constituency, defeating former Maharashtra minister Madhavrao Kinhalkar, who is also the complainant in the case.
“The Election Commission has decided that the respondent (Chavan) has failed to lodge his account of election expenses in the manner required by the Act (Representation of the People Act) and the rules. The commission directs the respondent to show cause why he should not be disqualified," the EC said in its report. The full bench of the EC comprising chief election commissioner (CEC) V.S. Sampath and election commissioners H.S. Brahma and S.N.A. Zaidi heard the case.
The EC order comes as further embarrassment to the Congress party, which managed to win only two Lok Sabha seats in the recently concluded general election in Maharashtra, while its rival the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 42 in alliance with the Shiv Sena.
Chavan was one of the two Congress party members who won the Lok Sabha election. Assembly elections in Maharashtra, expected to be held in October or November, are crucial to the Congress, which faces a resurgent BJP-Shiv Sena alliance that is keen to repeat its general election landslide victory.
Kinhalkar alleged in his complaint that Chavan had made a huge expenditure in order to get 25 advertisements and articles published during the 2009 assembly polls. But, he alleged, the expenses incurred on paid news were not included by Chavan in his account of election expenses.
Kinhalkar claimed that Chavan had spent several crores of rupees on paid news but had shown an expense of only ₹ 5,379 on newspaper advertisements in his account.
“There is no question of paid news," Chavan told Press Trust of India (PTI) over the phone.
Chavan, who won the assembly elections by a margin of more than 100,000 votes, also filed an expense of ₹ 6,000 on taking out cable television advertisements.
“The commission cannot accept the plea of the respondent that he was totally unaware, ignorant, or had no knowledge, of publication of all these advertisements," the EC said in its order to Chavan.
The EC also said that because of the “totality" of the 25 advertisements he placed in various newspapers, Chavan “cannot validly claim ignorance" about the publication of the advertisements in which his name, the name of his constituency and his photograph appeared prominently. The EC, on the directions of the Supreme Court, had issued a notice to Chavan in May last year to appear before it in connection with the allegations which were categorized as those of “paid news".
“This notice definitely sends a strong message to all politicians indulging in paid news. But it remains to be seen if indeed the EC finds him guilty of having violated the provisions of the Representation of the People Act and cancels/annuls his election as MLA (member of legislative assembly) of Maharashtra. Since his term (as MLA) is now over, this becomes a rather unusual situation. The EC will have to take a call on this," said Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, who was part of a Press Council of India subcommittee set up to probe the paid news scandal. “If found guilty, the EC can bar him from contesting elections for the next three years as it did in the case of Umlesh Yadav (Vikas Yadav’s mother)," Thakurta added.
The EC’s attempts to inquire into the veracity of Chavan’s election accounts have been consistently opposed by his legal team. But attempts by his lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi, a spokesperson for the Congress party, to challenge the EC’s jurisdiction before a two-judge bench of the Delhi high court failed.
“The silver lining in the Ashok Chavan case came from proactive intervention before the Supreme Court by civil society organizations. In an intervention application in response to the government’s counter affidavit, a number of non-government organizations together with former election commissioners have argued that the government’s arguments would lead to perverse consequences if accepted," Thakurta and co-author Ujwala Uppaluri wrote in a chapter on paid news in a book titled Journalism: Ethics and Responsibilities published last year.
Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!
