Election commission on Tuesday 1st April, expressed their displeasure at NCP chief Sharad Pawar's controversial appeal to his followers to erase ink and vote again; and appealed to him to be more careful with his words and conduct in future. Though it pointed out that the call to people by Pawar to vote twice, in more than one place, violated section 171D of IPC; nevertheless, EC decided not to pursue this matter any further in view of him regretting about his appeal to his followers.

"The commission conveys its displeasure to you and expect you to behave better in public since you are a senior level leader of a national party. To ensure that by words/conduct you do not violet model code of conduct in future." EC told Sharad Pawar.

In his reply, to notice served by EC over his objectionable appeal at a rally on March 24, 2014, in Mumbai asking his followers to cast their vote to both Satara and Mumbai and to carefully erase ink from their forefinger, Pawar had said in his regret note to EC, he did not amount abetting or procuring votes by impersonation. Reminding EC that he clarified his statement in subsequent press note. The NCP leader said he deeply regrets the misunderstanding caused due to inadvertent act bordering on breach of code of conduct.

The Election Commission on Tuesday said, it was not satisfied with Pawar's explanation and ruled that he had overlooked Section 171D of IPC, which says that voting more than once as an electoral offense. However, EC decided (for unknown reasons) not to take punitive action against Sharad Pawar and refused to file FIR.

In this way Election commission gave clean chit to NCP leader. This act of cowardice on the part of EC raises some very important questions.

1) Can EC take liberty to give lease to a person just because he/she is a leader of a national level party?

2) Is there any provision in the concerned law that EC can connive at some people while executing the provisions of the law? Does that law allow EC to forgive and forget an offender?

Can EC refuse to file FIR as required by the law? Under what provision EC refused to file FIR in this case?

3) Does it mean that a leader of a party is different from any other person or voter? This becomes important because EC has specifically mentioned about Pawar's special position while giving him a lease; that means, had any other person of smaller stretcher made similar appeal to voters EC would have taken stringent action and filed an FIR? Under which provision a regret latter is good enough to forgive and forget that offense?

EC must explain the reason for these double standards.

4) In front of law all citizens should be equal while executing any and all provisions of law. If so how this act of treating Sharad Pawar with special care is justified?

5) While giving regretting note he says, "the misunderstanding caused due to 'inadvertent act' bordering on breach of code of conduct." that means, he wants to say that he did not mean to influence voters the way it appeared. However, if we see his call for double voting we clearly see that there is no chance for any misunderstanding. His call was very clear since he warned them to clean ink from the finger before going to cast second vote. Therefore, his this claim that it was a misunderstanding is not acceptable. In that appeal he suggested method to clean ink, such suggestion clearly shows that he wanted to clearly appeal to voters that they do indulge in double voting. He also told them that they can take advantage of different dates and that clearly indicates that he had a clear intention to advise voters to do double voting. Therefore, the suggestion in his regret note, "inadvertent act", is also not acceptable. He definitely meant to advise voters to do double voting. One more point is that, case of Dhanajay Munde an NCP leader from Bid has already admitted of having done and managed for double voting in the last election. That means Sharad, Pawar's appeal is not an isolated event that it can be taken as what he says. The case against Pawar and his party NCP is water tight and in spite of that how EC refuses to file FIR against Pawar?

In spite of this very clear evidence EC refused to file FIR against Sharad Pawar. I had mentioned in my previous post that EC will be sold and here we get the circumstantial evidence for that. I say so because, when matter is so very clear how on earth EC gave clean chit to him and refused to execute action for violation of section 171D of IPC. This act of EC chief Mr. Brahma clearly shows that some money has flown from Pawar to Mr. Brahma.

I have requested Kirit Somayaji to ask for SC opinion on this EC decision, to connive at Sharad Pawar's this conspicuous commitment.

If this is the way EC is going to work I am afraid to admit that our democracy will be sold for scrap in he coming period. For law all should be equal, as it is always said, but here we see for EC not all are equal. Some are more equal than others! And there are exceptions to law also. Actually more stringent measures should be applied to senior level leaders if they make such clear violation of law. Because if they are let loose more dangerous dealings will be happening in the future. Small people are excused for their ignorance and not senior people such as Pawar.

I hope Kiritji will take necessary action and let us know how SC takes EC. I also hope that SC shall be impartial and shall not be sold to Pawar. Nevertheless, we should know that Pawar knows how to "manage" and so let us see how he manages Supreme Court. In the meantime, all responsible citizens of this country should send email protests to EC chief for his this very corrupt act. Send your protests on your face book and twitter to make EC understand that people of India are not sleeping.

You may contact me on my Email ID given below,

ashokkothare@gmail.com

You are, invited to visit my other blogs if interested.

Ashok Kothare for stories

Ideas and tips on any subject for intelligent  discussions.

I reckon, for philosophy