Amit Malviya's tweet: EC constitutes committee to probe matter, report to be submitted in 7 days

Amid the uproar over BJP head of IT cell Amit Malviya's tweet on Karnataka election dates before the poll panel made an announcement, the Election Commission on Tuesday constituted a committee of officers to probe the matter. The committee would submit the report on this matter within seven days.

Questions were earlier raised as to how Malviya had posted the dates on his Twitter handle before the Election Commission had announced it. Malviya's tweet was not entirely accurate as he wrote that counting would be on May 18, but the date announced by the EC for counting is May 15. He, however, got the polling date right i.e. May 12.

Malviya has said that his tweets on the dates of the Karnataka elections were based on a news break put out by a television channel.

In a letter to the Election Commission of India, Malviya has said that the channel, Times Now had put out the information at 11.06 am. He said that his information on Twitter came out two minutes after the channel had aired the information.

Malviya also attached screenshots to prove that his tweet was posted two minutes after the channel beamed the news. Further, he attached a similar tweet by the social media in-charge of the Congress in Karnataka, who it seems also used the same source to post the information exactly when he did.

Opposition parties have slammed the ruling BJP government at the Centre following alleged poll date leak.

Congress in-charge communications Randeep Surjewala wrote: "BJP becomes the 'Super Election Commission' as they announce poll dates for Karnataka even before the EC."

However, it was later learnt that Congress's social media in-charge in Karnataka too put out a tweet at the same time - 11.08 am - a good 15 minutes before the announcement.

OneIndia News