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EC disqualifies MP minister for filing wrong expenditure info

A stringent punishment, however, came for the MP minister, with the EC, disqualifying him from contesting elections for three years.

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Narottam Mishra
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In a major setback to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh, the Election Commission on Saturday disqualified senior minister Narottam Mishra for filing wrong accounts of election expenditure in the 2008 Assembly polls. In another order, the Commission also rejected pleas of 21 AAP legislators of Delhi Assembly to drop office of profit case against them. The EC in its final hearing, likely to be in August, will decide on their disqualification.

A stringent punishment, however, came for the MP minister, with the EC, disqualifying him from contesting elections for three years.

In its 69-page order, the Commission also used some strong words against paid news, calling it a "cancerous menace" that is assuming "alarming proportions" in the electoral landscape. His election from the Datia Assembly constituency also stands void.

A full bench of the Election Commission comprising Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi and Election Commissioners AK Joti and OP Rawat, in its order indicting Mishra, unseated him under various sections of the Representation of the People Act (RPA), 1951. Mishra, who won from Datia Assembly constituency, is the minister for Water Resources and Public Relations and is the chief spokesperson of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.

Congress candidate Rajendra Bharti, the main complainant in the case, had first sent a complaint to the EC about 8 years ago in 2009.

The order said that all the 42 news items, that appeared in five Hindi dailies, were "extremely biased in favour of Mishra", adding its findings also strengthened the conclusion that he "knowingly participated or took advantage of the expenditure on such advertisements" that appeared as news in the publications.

Immediately after the order, Congress demanded Mishra's resignation. The minister, however, said he would challenge it before the MP High Court. He rejected the demand for his resignation. "The Commission finds that irrespective of whether the alleged expenditure when added to the respondent's reported account, breaches the permissible limit or not, the fact remains that the respondent has not only knowingly submitted a false account of expenses, but also attempted to circumvent the legally prescribed limit on expenditure. Such attempts need to be curbed with strong measures and visited with exemplary sanctions and restore the balance in the electoral playing field," the order indicting Mishra said.

Accordingly, it said, the Commission declares that Mishra stands disqualified for three years from the date of this order under Section 10A read with Sections 77 and 78 of the RPA for failure to lodge his account of election expenses in the manner required by the law and for having no good reason or justification for such failure.

Mishra told reporters in Bhopal that according to legal experts the disqualification order was "infructuous." He said that the EC delivered its judgment based on the case relating to his win in 2008 MP Assembly polls from Datia seat. "After that, I have won in 2013 Assembly polls as well," he said.

The Commission said that paid news was a grave electoral malpractice which circumvents election expenditure limits, disturbs the level playing field and militates against the voters' right to accurate information to enable him to make informed choice. The Commission said that the common man gives more credence to news in newspapers than to advertisements of political parties and hence the publication of advertisements in the garb of news by way of paid news "amounts to deceiving the electorate".

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