‘MP’ Tendulkar’s poll season Bharat Ratna in RTI trouble

An RTI activist has petitioned the Election Commission of India on grounds that declaring India’s highest civilian honour for Tendulkar, a Congress-nominated Rajya Sabha MP, just ahead of the assembly elections in five states is a violation of the model code of conduct by the government.

Updated on: Nov 20, 2013, 24:54:48 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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While the country cheers the announcement of the Bharat Ratna to cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar, it might just put the ruling Congress-led UPA government in a bind.

An RTI activist has petitioned the Election Commission of India (ECI) on grounds that declaring India’s highest civilian honour for Tendulkar, a Congress-nominated Rajya Sabha MP, just ahead of the assembly elections in five states is a violation of the model code of conduct by the government.

Tendulkar was nominated to the upper house of Parliament by the UPA government in 2012.

Minister of state for planning and parliamentary affairs Rajiv Shukla on November 12 had said that Tendulkar was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, as Congress president Sonia Gandhi was keen on it.

“It was not my idea to have Sachin in Rajya Sabha. I was thinking that veterans such as Ravi Shastri or Sunil Gavaskar would be recommended but Sonia Gandhi asked me to talk to Sachin,” Shukla had said.

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“I told her that he’s still playing, but she insisted that at least I discuss it with him.”

Now, Right to Information (RTI) activist Devashish Bhattacharya has argued in his petition to the ECI that since Tendulkar is a Congress-nominated Rajya Sabha MP, honouring him with the Bharat Ratna can influence his fans who are also voters in the five states facing elections – Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.

Since the Congress did not take permission from the poll watchdog before announcing the award, it is a violation of the model code of conduct, Bhattacharya has said.

The model code prohibits any announcement by the government which could electorally benefit the party in power or adversely impact others in the poll fray.

The ECI says a decision on the petition will be taken in a few days, after holding legal consultations.

Already, four complaints made by the Congress against the BJP for model code violation are pending before the commission.

• Bharat Ratna opens to all achievers, thanks to Sachin

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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