'EC unable to act against Virbhadra Singh, wife'

The Election Commission (EC) may not be able to take action against Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh and his MP wife Pratibha Singh for providing wrong information while filing nomination papers, as claimed by BJP.

Updated on: Jan 3, 2014, 24:55:16 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Election Commission (EC) may not be able to take action against Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh and his MP wife Pratibha Singh for providing wrong information while filing nomination papers, as claimed by BJP.

BJP leader Anurag Thakur had filed a complaint with the EC accusing Singh and his wife of concealing information about their cash assets in the nomination papers filed to contest polls.

The couple has denied the allegation and the Congress has also backed them. EC sources say it would be difficult for the commission to probe the issue as its powers to investigate allegations of concealing facts while filing nomination papers has been curtailed by the court.

"We have asked the government to provide clarity in the Representation of People’s Act on powers of the Election Commission to disqualify a candidate for providing wrong information to the commission," a senior EC official said.

The EC wanted that it should have power to disqualify a candidate for giving false information in the affidavit on asset and criminal record filed with the nomination papers.

Thakur had accused Singh of not providing information on seeking loan from a private firm which had a contract to set up a hydro power plant in Himachal Pradesh, with his nomination papers.
The EC received a complaint against Pratibha Singh of spending more than R40 lakh during her election in Lok Sabha polls. The EC found the expenditure report submitted by her was at variance with the report of the expenditure observer appointed by the commission.

The EC has not been able to issue an explanatory notice to Pratibha Singh, as it does not have powers to question an elected representative on perceived wrong information.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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