No cabinet briefing due to model code of conduct

October 1st, 2009 NEW DELHI - Scheduled meetings of the Union Cabinet were cancelled on Thursday in deference to the Model Code of Conduct introduced ahead of this month's assembly elections in the states of Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh. Sources said that meetings of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) and the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure (CCI), which were scheduled for this afternoon, were cancelled in the wake of the Election Commission of India's (ECI) decision to have the Model Code of Conduct in place less than a fortnight before the polls in these three states.

August 31st, 2009 NEW DELHI - The model code of conduct in poll-bound Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana and Maharashtra, where voting to elect new state governments will be held Oct 13, came into effect Monday. The model code of conduct comes into effect from today (Monday) in the all three states, Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla told reporters while announcing the poll schedule for the three Congress-ruled states.

May 21st, 2009 PANAJI - The model code of conduct (MCC) that comes into effect during each poll has a lot of grey areas and nearly all cases involving it gave rise to a difference of opinion between the Election Commission of India (ECI) and others, a former election official has said. Speaking before the ad-hoc legislative committee meeting on home affairs in Panaji Wednesday, Ajit Srivastava, a senior bureaucrat who stepped down as chief electoral officer (CEO) in-charge of the election proceedings in Goa, said: 'The model code of conduct was interpreted by various parties and various authorities in their own style...

April 30th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Election Commission Thursday censured Tamil Nadu's Transport Minister K.N. Nehru for allegedly distributing free gifts like bicycles, saris and rice to prospective voters.

April 28th, 2009 LUCKNOW - Sahab Singh, the Samajwadi Party candidate from Uttar Pradesh's Baghpat Lok Sabha seat, has been booked for violating the model code of conduct after he allegedly addressed a late night rally, police said Tuesday. 'A case has been registered against Sahab Singh for defying the model code of conduct during the polls,' police inspector Suraj Singh told IANS over phone.

April 20th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Election Commission's action on violation of the model code of conduct is 'not stringent enough', an official in the Delhi chief electoral offiicer's (CEO) office said Monday. J.K Sharma, Delhi's joint electoral officer, said that for these polls they have been receiving complaints on violations of the model code of conduct from different political party leaders, but most have been on frivolous ground.

April 17th, 2009 BHOPAL - The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur parliamentary constituency, Laxmi Narayan Pande, was arrested Friday for violating the poll code, police said. 'Pandey has been arrested for violating the model code of conduct as he is found to have held an election meeting in temple premises,' Mandsaur district's additional superintendent of police G.G.

April 13th, 2009 NEW DELHI - As political leaders brace for the Lok Sabha polls beginning Thursday, the Election Commission has asked all parties to scrupulously observe the Model Code of Conduct and set high standards of electoral morality. In a written communication sent to all recognised national and state political parties late Sunday, the poll panel said: 'The Election Commission expects that all political parties, their leaders, workers and supporters as well as their candidates shall scrupulously observe the Model Code of Conduct in letter and spirit.' While expressing unhappiness at the flouting of norms of the Model Code of Conduct, the Election Commission also asked parties to conduct their electoral campaigns in a way that set 'high standards of electoral morality so as to ensure the integrity and purity of the exercise'.

March 25th, 2009 RANCHI - The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Wednesday demanded the removal of Jharkhand Governor Syed Sibte Razi accusing him of violating the model code of conduct. 'We have faxed a letter to President Pratibha Patil and the Election Commission demanding removal of the governor, who is violating the model code of conduct,' Raghubar Das, state BJP president, told reporters.

March 23rd, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Election Commission of India Sunday asked union Minister for Mines Sis Ram Ola to explain why he violated the model code of conduct by inaugurating a new school in Rajasthan. Ola was shown by a news channel inaugurating newly built rooms of a government school in Rajasthan March 8.

March 22nd, 2009 NEW DELHI - Bharatiya Janata Party's Uttar Pradesh candidate Varun Gandhi may have sparked off a controversy by his allegedly provocative speeches, but the Election Commission's action against him has been in haste and beyond jurisdiction, says former election commissioner G.V.G. Krishnamurthy.

March 21st, 2009 LUCKNOW - R.S. Kushwaha, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate from Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli seat, has been charged with violating the model code of conduct for using mikes without permission, police said Saturday.

March 18th, 2009 LUCKNOW - A popular Bhojpuri folk singer, who is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate for the Mainpuri parliamentary seat in Uttar Pradesh, has been charged with violating the model code of conduct, an official said Wednesday. 'We have issued a notice to Tripti Shakya for defying the model code of conduct by advertising her road shows in newspapers without taking permission from the district administration,' additional district magistrate Ram Kewal told IANS on telephone from Mainpuri, 250 km from here.

February 17th, 2009 RANCHI - A Jharkhand court Wednesday found former chief minister Shibu Soren, his son Durga Soren and former deputy chief minister Stephen Marandi guilty of violating the election code. They were, however, let off with a warning.

January 7th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Violation of the model code of conduct of the Election Commission is no ground to set aside the election of a candidate as the guidelines do not have legal sanctity, a Delhi court has ruled. The model code of conduct apparently has no statutory backing and many of its provisions are not legally enforceable and it is the political parties which have themselves consented to abide by the principles embodied in the code, Additional District Judge Kamini Lau said in a ruling this week.