The Election Commission has taken cognisance of allegations of Model Code of Conduct violations by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and also Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge and sent notices to party presidents instead of naming the individuals. The Supreme Court has reserved its order on a bunch of petitions seeking 100% verification of VVPATs and said that no candidate has yet pointed to a mismatch between the votes polled on EVMs and the slips printed by the VVPAT machine. Meanwhile a petition has been filed in the Supreme Court demanding an SIT probe into the Electoral Bonds scheme. The second phase of the Lok Sabha elections will take place on April 26 when 89 seats across 21 states and union territories will go to the polls including the whole of Kerala, Rajasthan as well as half of Karnataka.
The Wire‘s Sravasti Dasgupta is joined by The Wire‘s editor Seema Chishti and Satark Nagarik Sangathan founding member Anjali Bhardwaj.
