Image Courtesy:economictimes.indiatimes.com
As voting for Assembly Elections concluded on March 7, social media was abuzz with hundreds of allegations of poll code violations. The Election Commission of India’s cVIGIL software application, which allows citizens to directly register complaints, reportedly received 47,393 complaints!
A whopping 40,395 were found to be correct, reported Hindustan Times. These complaints of violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) are only related to the Assembly Elections in Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Punjab, Manipur and Uttarakhand held between February 10 and March 7. According to the report, the EC “takes action against a complaint within 100 minutes of it being lodged” and the complaints themselves range from “offers of cash and freebies to tampering of polling machines and use of foul language.”
The highest number of complaints were from Uttarakhand, with 24,774 correct complaints found to be correct and responded to, followed by Punjab with a total of 17,697 complaints, and “action was taken on 13,633”.
In Manipur, 860 complaints were lodged and action was taken in connection with 615 of these, and in Goa, 614 complaints were lodged and 351 were acted upon. Interestingly there were only “2,375 complaints and 1,020 crackdowns” in Uttar Pradesh.
However, on poll day March 7, serious allegations were made and even viral videos of self-confession by political workers saying “least 200 EVMs have been changed… arrangements will be made overnight,” etc surfaced. According to the news report, most of the complaints with EC were on “property defacement, followed by distribution of alcohol, freebies, religious and communal speeches and campaigning during the prohibited periods, according to official data”. This data isn’t sorted according to political party.
The EC Had appointed “special observers” in 63 “expenditure-sensitive constituencies” constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Manipur to keep an eye on misuse of money. Uttar Pradesh had the highest number of at 33 from a total of 403 seats.
According to a report in the Economic times, around 2,270 First Information Reports (FIRs) were registered across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Manipur, Goa and Uttarakhand this election season for violation of the model code of conduct and Covid-19 guidelines. The highest number of FIRs were filed in UP, and out of the 1,700 FIRs filed in UP, 1,236 were for violation of the model code of conduct while 464 were for Covid-19 related violations. It was reported that 464 FIRs were lodged in UP for violation of pandemic guidelines alone. Over 300 FIRs were lodged in Uttarakhand for violation of the model code and Covid-19 in- structions, 104 in Punjab, 106 in Goa and 26 in Manipur.
The maximum mum FIRs were filed against the Samajwadi Party in UP for Covid-19 and model code violations, at 306. They are closely followed by the BJP at 256, against the Bahujan Samaj Party at 132 and the Congress at 99, reported ET.
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