The Election Commission has found no violation of the poll code in Niti Aayog sharing data with the prime minister's office (PMO) on places where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was set to campaign for the Lok Sabha elections. Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Sandeep Saxena said the prime minister was exempted from the provision that bars ministers from combining official visits with campaigning. The exemption to the prime minister was given in October 2014. "It was not a one-time exemption but a standing instruction," PTI quoted Saxena as saying. Last week, the Election Commission had sought NITI Aayog’s comments on the Congress’s allegation that the government policy think-tank was misused by the PMO for election purposes. A letter was sent to NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on May 4. Quoting from a news report on the website scroll.in, the opposition party’s complaint alleged the Aayog had written to different collectors in Maharashtra in March seeking basic statistics and demographic profile of Gondia, Latur and Wardha districts ahead of Modi’s rallies there. Similar instructions were also issued to government officers in all Union Territories seeking information on the local culture, history, heroes, among others, of the areas which the PM was about to visit, the opposition party’s complaint stated. This, the Congress stated, was in violation of the EC’s instructions that prohibit misuse of government resources in election campaigning. The EC also sought a response from the Commerce Ministry on the Congress's fresh complaint against information allegedly sought by an officer of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade on Start Up India, claiming that it was meant to be used for BJP's manifesto.
