Clean Chit War In Election Commission Escalates As Polls Draw To A Close

As the crucial national election draws to a close, Ashok Lavasa, one of the two Election Commissioners, felt compelled to stop attending meetings to decide on violations of the Model Code of Conduct. This is as a protest over his dissent view in the Election Commission's clean chits given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah in six instances going unrecorded. The three-member Election Commission consists of the Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and two election commissioners - Ashok Lavasa and Sushil Chandra, and they take the final decision on complaints of code of conduct violations made by political parties against opponents. While the poll panel's rules allow for majority decisions in this election, for the first time the Election Commission has stopped including the dissent view in their final orders.