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Journalism of Courage
Congresss plan to undercut the EC is dangerous and needs to be promptly abandoned
When a Congress spokesperson talked of the need to give statutory status to the model code of conduct in the middle of the row sparked by Salman Khurshids defiance of the Election Commissions directive during the UP campaign,it appeared to be a diversionary ploy at best and a crude threat at worst. The latter may have been closer to the truth. As a report in this paper today reveals,a proposal to take the model code of conduct out of the ECs purview and place it in the realm of the law and the court is on the agenda of a Pranab Mukherjee-headed Group of Ministers scheduled to meet this week. The Congress is being both authoritarian and unwise. By seeking to cut down the ECs powers after its law minister defied it although he did send a subsequent apology the party confirms that the show of grace was purely superficial. Lurking below the surface was the same hauteur and cavalier approach to institutions that the party has been accused of in the past,often deservedly. In the process of settling scores with the EC,the Congress could end up not just downsizing a crucial institution but also undercutting the systems efficacy to correct electoral impropriety.
Surely the Congress has plenty on its plate. The fallout of several corruption scams is still to be fully dealt with. Every time it takes a big policy initiative,there is the pull and tug of allies. Confrontation is brewing between the government it leads at the Centre and non-Congress ruled states. The Congress can do without taking on an institution that it can only pull down at its own and the systems peril. It should abandon any such plan.
