Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'PM is clean, declares EC' that was published in Newsband

PM is clean, declares EC

Senior Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa has given dissenting opinions regarding four of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speeches and one of BJP national president Amit Shah. The full Commission did not find any violation of the Model Code of Conduct in the speeches by a majority of 2:1.

The Commission has so far cleared six speeches of Modi, apart from his interview to a TV news channel in Varanasi on April 26, observing that they did not violate the code and its advisories. This is the second instance after the rafale expose', that there is an internal dissent while taking a government decision. In the light of this development, the CAG report on rafale should also be probed for internal dissent.

Jurisprudence is not the expression of a consensus, but a system that is rooted in upholding the law. If the Election Commission can do no better than to come to a diplomatic consensus to deal with a charge of violation of EC regulations, then they might as well assign themselves to the category of emasculated, nail-less and toothless agents of the ruling party.

Just as film censorship has undergone changes in expectations of what is ok and what is not, the model code of conduct has also undergone change.  On one side we have sophisticated crooks who try to repeat the lie again and again misguiding the public, on the other side there is a crude set of politicians who dont mind speaking their mind out without hiding any ill feelings.  Election Commission of the day has to decide what is ok to take the election to a business end. 

The clean chit to PM comes with 'dissent'. Seventy-one of the retired IAS guys suddenly got a stroke of 'morality' and objects to a candidate put up by a party as an immoral act. The chief Justice of India   gets accused of 'sexual misconduct' by a sacked female worker and  a totally 'committed' senior lawyer takes up cudgels on her behalf and faults the CJI for sitting in on that issue. The cycle goes on but the funny part of all this drama is that while high corruption and total ineptness was ruling the roost prior to 2014, nobody had either the time or the courage to voice an opinion. While the educated/informed were playing blind, the poor dumb millions were mere spectators. Hence, from a dispassionate view, it looks as if there is a method in this madness, a sly and rather convoluted attempt to influence the ongoing elections instead of fighting it on general principles of economy or national welfare.

Corruption was rampant in the years prior to 2014. But is it less now? Corruption among politicians comes to public attention when the investigating agencies work on it. In the five years, federal agencies of all hue have carried out investigations; all such raids were on properties belonging to the members of the opposition parties. Does that mean that all the members of the ruling dispensation are sons of Harish Chandra?

And more to the point, for all the 'investigations' during the five years of the BJP rule how many have been taken to court for their corrupt activities in the past. The whole thing appears to be a drama enacted to sensationalise the issues; the rich and powerful go unscathed whether it is Ravana1 or Ravana2 who is in power.