PremiumNEW DELHI : The Election Commission (EC) on late Friday evening gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Wednesday address to the nation. The EC found no ground for violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) with the provision regarding 'misuse of official mass media' in his address.
The EC communicated this while responding in a letter to Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist), who had written to the poll watchdog over the issue. In its communication dated Friday, the EC spoke about how the the committee which was looking into the matter held three rounds of meetings over the last three days and was briefed by officials of Doordarshan News and All India Radio (AIR).
“The committee members examined in detail the transcript of PM's message, inputs given by DG (director general), DD and DG, AIR and all correspondence received from them. It is clear that Doordarshan only used the feed provided by ANI (news agency Asia News International). The All India Radio has taken audio output as broadcast by Doordarshan news for dissemination over All India Radio network," the appointed committee said in its report.
While DD in its response to EC said that the telecast was not live and its source was ANI, it added that it subscribes to ANI 'which provides the visuals of news events round the clock' and that the PM's message was telecast by over 60 other news channels.
In a televised address, the Prime Minister on Wednesday announced that India had successfully targeted a live satellite on low earth orbit and registered itself as a space power. The mission, which was completed in three minutes, was named 'Mission Shakti'. Following this, Yechury wrote a letter to the chief election commissioner regarding the speech, questioning if the Election Commission had been given prior warning.
