The Election Commission will reopen its probe in an alleged case of poll code violation involving NITI Aayog and Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Reports suggest that the decision has come on EC Ashok Lavasa's firmness and after the reports of a dispute among the three full members of the commission emerged in public.

Last Sunday, Election Commission gave a clean chit to NITI Aayog and PMO on a complaint filed by Congress alleging misuse of state machinery during BJP's campaign. Congress had alleged that PMO used NITI Aayog to gather information on Gondia, Wardha and Latur constituencies for PM Modi's rally in the region.

Announcing the EC's clearance on the allegation, Deputy EC Sandeep Saxena had said that there's no merit in the case as Prime Minister is is exempted from the rule that bars ministers to combine official and electioneering visits.

According to reports, the decision was taken despite Lavasa insisting further clarification from the NITI Aayog ECO Amitabh Kant as to whether the government asked for the data and what kind of data was provided.

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Yesterday, reports surfaced that EC Lavasa has been rescuing himself from meetings on deciding violations of the Model Code over minority decisions going unrecorded in the final order.

It's learnt that Lavasa had also objected to EC's decision to give PM Modi and Amit Shah clean chits over poll code violations. EC had cleared PM Modi of six instances of alleged poll code violations.  The three-full members of the Election Commission consisting of the Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and the two election commissioners - Ashok Lavasa and Sushil Chandra.