Election Commission tells Centre to remove photographs of political leaders from government websites.
The Election Commission has ordered the Centre to remove photographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ministers from government websites, insisting that all references to political leaders in official websites violated the model code of conduct.
Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha has also been told to explain why the central government hadn't removed references to the politicians from its websites so far.
The code of conduct had come into force from 4 January when the panel announced the schedule for elections to the five states, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa, Uttar Pradesh and Manipur. The polls are already over in Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa and two of the seven phases in Uttar Pradesh have been completed. Manipur will go to polls in March.
The EC letter sent over the weekend recalled that the commission had specifically mandated "removal of all references of ministers, politician or political parties available on central/state government's official website" in January.
It realised that the Centre hadn't complied with its instruction when someone complained how the website of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana - that was being implemented in Uttar Pradesh - gave the BJP an unfair advantage since it had PM Narendra Modi and Union Housing Minister M Venkaiah Naidu's pictures.
The panel told the government to not only fix this website but also "ensure that websites of other ministries/departments" do not contain such photographs.
A key objective of the code is to ensure a level playing field for all political parties contesting elections and cap the possibility of the ruling party using government resources to its advantage.
Years ago, this meant taking down - or covering - government hoardings with pictures of the ministers.
Ahead of the 2004 Lok Sabha General elections, the commission ordered the NDA government to mask pictures of then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on hoardings along the National Highways. Eight years later, the poll panel told the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh to drape the chief minister's statues, and of the elephants - that are her party, BSP's election symbol - at Ambedkar parks in Lucknow and Noida.
The same principle was later applied in cyber space, and the rule to remove all references to politicians from official websites introduced. In UP, many district officers have suspended their local websites rather than go through the trouble of scanning individual webpages.