EC halts release of book on Rafale deal, cites 'violation' of MCC

Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], Apr 2 (ANI): The Election Commission (EC) has reportedly halted the release of a book on the controversial Rafale fighter jets deal, citing an apparent violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.  
The book release, which was to be chaired by N. Ram, the Managing Director of the Hindu group, was stopped by the officials of the poll body.
As many as 148 copies of the book were seized from the author S Vijayan's office. 
Vijayan, who penned the book titled "Rafale: A Scam That Rocked the Nation" published it through Bharathi publications based in Chennai. 
Talking to ANI, PK Rajan, the editor of Bharathi publications said: “We have not done any investigative journalism. The writer has merely aggregated the information available online, in a concise manner.”
He said that the reason he was denied the permission is that “they were afraid the truth will be out in open” and the people of Tamil Nadu would get to know the “truth”.
He also said that his publication house was stopped by the officials three-four times earlier as well citing the same reason. “We were denied permission to hold the event many a time. After that, we decided to hold it in our own shop because we believed that no police permission would be required in that case,” he said.  (ANI)