NEW DELHI: Stung by a barrage of criticism from the Opposition that the government was trying to curb the powers of the Election Commission, the Union Home Ministry on Tuesday issued a denial that the government had any plans of diluting the model code of conduct - either by giving it a statutory status or otherwise. Instead, a group of ministers(GoM) will be deliberating on the issue of state-funding of elections, it said.
The BJP had on Tuesday lashed out at the Congress, calling it a party of ‘serial offenders of the Election Commission’s model code of conduct,’ and said ‘any move to curtail the poll panel’s powers would be resisted tooth and nail.’ “We will oppose any move to clip EC’s powers. The Congress is a party of serialof fenders of the model code of conduct and they don’t like to be regulated by it,” said senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley.
The BJP attacked the government even as many Congress functionaries are being booked for violating the code. Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid was issued a notice for his minority subquota remark. Minister for Steel Beni Prasad Verma, who was issued an EC notice on similar charges, is to appear before the panel on Friday.
An FIR has been registered against Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi for violating the code in Kanpur during his road show. President Pratibha Patil’s son Rajendra ‘Raosaheb’ Shekhawat was involved in a row when `1 crore was recovered from him.