Sitaram Yechury writes EC, alleges misuse of official machinery by PM Modi

Sitaram Yechury, General Secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) on Wednesday wrote to the Election Commission of India (ECI), alleging misuse of the official machinery by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for electoral gain in the Lok Sabha elections.

In the letter addressed to Chief Election Commissioner, Sunil Arora, Yechury has also expressed concern regarding the manner in which the ECI is dealing with the complaints regarding the violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Through the letter, Yechury informed the Commission, "a web magazine has published an article showing the manner in which government infrastructure and machinery has been brazenly used by the Prime Minister's Office for securing information from various ministries, as well as, concerned state and district administration to provide inputs for preparing his election speeches."

"The article also provides documentary evidence to this effect," Yechury said.

The CPI (M) leader further wrote, "Another web magazine has published an article to provide the grounds which led to the eventual disqualification former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. It seems that the violations attributed to Gandhi are of far less import than the current violations vis-a-vis those committed by Prime Minister Modi."

"In dealing with violations of MCC, the ECI appears to be not only halting but carrying on at a pace which is emboldening the perpetrators and exemplifies the notion of 'delayed justice' amounting to its actual 'denial'!", the letter reads.

He posed a series of questions to the poll body asking, "Does Narendra Modi, a BJP candidate from Varanasi constituency in Uttar Pradesh and a star campaigner for the BJP, is needed to be treated differently from the enforcement of MCC for the simple reason that he happens to be the incumbent Prime Minister?"

"We are constrained to raise this question because of want of appropriate response from the Commission in the past, which is adequately empowered by the Constitution to deal with this in a firm and decisive manner," he added.