Gandhinagar: The Election Commission has not found any violation of Model Code of Conduct in holding the meeting of ruling BJP’s State Parliamentary Board/ Loksabha Election Committee at Chief Minister Vijay Rupani’s official residence here.

Chief Electoral Officer of Gujarat S Muralikrishna today informed.

He said that the Gandhinagar collector cum district election officer was asked to get it probed and after the investigation by a deputy collector rank official it was found that there was no violation of the MCC.

He added that as per the ECI’s guidelines such meetings in circuit houses and Dak Bungalows etc were not allowed after announcement of polls but that in a CM house was not prohibited.

‘It is not violation of MCC and we have closed this case.

Notably the probe was ordered after complaint by main opposition Congress that the ruling BJP in Gujarat has violated the model code of conduct by holding a meeting of the party’s State Parliamentary Board/ Loksabha Election Committee at Chief Minister Vijay Rupani’s official residence here.

Gujarat Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi had said that it was a clear-cut violation of the model code of conduct. ‘The meeting to select BJP candidates was a political activity while the CM residence was a government building. When the model code of conduct was in force how can such a meeting be held there. The ECI must take action in this matter,’ he had said.

BJP state president Jeetu Vaghani however had said that there was no violation of any rule. He claimed that the meeting was being held there due to the CM’s security. Vaghani had said that it was not a political rally or any thing to do with poll campaign. He said that Congress was raking up such things as it knew fully well that it was going to loose the election.
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Notably on the first day of the 3 day meet yesterday 11 of the total 26 Loksabha seats in Gujarat were reviewed as part of candidate selection process.

Loksabha election in-charge of Gujarat and national Vice president of the party Om Mathur, CM Vijay Rupani, state president Jeetu Vaghani were attending the meeting in which 11 ,more seats – Mahesana, Patan, Banaskantha, Sabarkantha, Jamnagar, Amreli, Bhavnagar, Surendranagar, Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad-East and Ahmedabad-West were reviewed on the second day yesterday. On the last day today the remaining four seats of Rajkot, Kutch, Porbandar and Junagadh have been reviewed. The final list of probable candidates on all the seats would be sent to the central parliamentary board for final announcement. Reportedly the list for Gandhinagar and Porbandar seats have not been prepared.

DeshGujarat