EC raps Centre for violation of MCC over PM's pics on website

The Election Commission tells the Centre to remove Narendra Modi and Venkaiah Naidu's pictures from Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna website.

New Delhi, Feb 16: As the polling process in Uttar Pradesh is still underway--with five more phases of voting to take place soon--the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union Government has got a warning from the Election Commission. The EC asked the Centre to immediately remove pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet colleague Venkaiah Naidu from the website of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna.

The reason: the pictures on the websites are a violation of the model code of conduct. The EC ruled that the pictures should be removed immediately. After prod from the EC, the pictures of Modi and Naidu have been removed. Earlier, the EC received a complaint citing the pictures on the website are promoting BJP in UP.

Reports say the EC told cabinet secretary PK Sinha to remove the pictures immediately. "Depiction of photographs of prime minister and ministers...is in violation of model code of conduct and hence such photographs shall have to be immediately removed from the official website (pmaymis.gov.in) ... the Commission desires to know the reason as to why this was not done before, when the model code was in force (since 4 January)," the EC wrote to Sinha.

Immediately after the declaration of assembly elections dates for five states-Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Punjab, Manipur and Uttarakhand-in January, the EC directed that references of ministers and politicians be removed from central government websites to ensure that the party in power does not get an advantage of any kind in the assembly elections. While polls are over in Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa, they are on in Uttar Pradesh and are to be held in Manipur.

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