THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An RTI activist has reached a dead end. M.T. Thomas, a member of Aruna Roy-led National Campaign for People's Right to Information, said that the office of the Chief Election Commission had uttered a blatant lie. It has furnished false information regarding none other than the President of India's communication. “An RTI reply filed by the CEC’s office says that it had not received any information from the President’s office,” Mr Thomas said. “But I have documents to show the President’s office had indeed forwarded my compliant to the CEC’s office on August 5,” he added.
Mr Thomas had forwarded his complaint, related to the enforcement of the model code of conduct during Assembly elections, to the President after the CEC refused to take action on the basis of his petition. “I had submitted a representation to the President to call for necessary explanation from the CEC for having violated the Model Code of Conduct in announcing the election in Kerala on March 4 instead of April 1 this year,” Mr Thomas said.
As per Election Commission of India Code of Conduct, the Commission will announce a date for the election ordinarily not more than three weeks prior to the date on which the notification is likely to be issued. The date of issue of notification of the election in the state was April 22. “Hence the CEC should have announced the date of election only three weeks prior to April 22, which is April 1. Instead, the CEC made the announcement on March 4, almost seven weeks in advance,” he said. Since the code of conduct came into force on March 4, Mr
Thomas said the beneficiaries of various welfare schemes, including people suffering from terminal illness, had to wait for more than 64 days for the election to be over, for no fault of theirs. When he found the CEC was not unwilling to make amends, he appraoched the President. “Now they say the President has not forwarded any such letter.”
