NEW DELHI: Rejecting the demand of Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa, the poll panel said on Tuesday that the dissenting opinions will only be recorded on files in cases of Model Code of Conduct violations, “as it happened earlier.”
“In the meeting of the Election Commission held today, i.e., 21.5.2019 it was interalia decided that proceedings of the Commission meeting would be drawn including the views of all the Commission Members. Thereafter, formal instructions to this effect would be issued in consonance with extant laws/rules, etc,” the poll panel said in a statement, reported Hindustan Times.
Lavasa, a former finance secretary, had recused himself from all MCC (model code of conduct) issues from the first week of this month after his “minority decisions” went unrecorded.
Lavasa, in his letter to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, insisted that he would attend the meetings if his minority decisions were also included in the orders of the Commission.
“Minority decision in a constitutional body should be made public,” said Lavasa speaking to NDTV.
Sources said that Lavasa has expressed his dissent on clean chit to four speeches of PM Modi and one speech of BJP President Amit Shah. The Full Commission in a majority ruling 2:1, reportedly did not find any MCC violation in the speeches.
The Chief Election Commissioner Arora, referring to Mr Lavasa, issued a statement on Saturday that states:
“The three members of the ECI are not expected to be templates or clones of each other. There have been so many times in the past when there has been a vast diversion of views as it and should be.” be.”
The three-member Election Commission consists of the Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and two election commissioners – Ashok Lavasa and Sushil Chandra.