New Delhi, July 18: The Election Commission of India sources have confirmed that they has received an official complaint from the Orissa government about the alleged incident of bribery regarding the 2010 Rajya Sabha elections swept by the ruling BJD party.

The BJD had won all three available Rajya Sabha seats. The Opposition parties — the BJP and Congress — had accused the ruling party of bribing two Congress MLAs and one BJP MLA to abstain from voting. Last month, audiotapes surfaced in which two ministers of the Naveen Patnaik ministry were allegedly heard talking about the price to be paid to the MLAs and the sources from which the money could be arranged.

With both Opposition parties gunning for his government, chief minister Naveen Patnaik announced recently that he was “forwarding the matter to the Election Commission for appropriate action.” Election Commission sources today confirmed that a complaint had been received from “official sources”, without specifying the sources.

“We have received a complaint from official sources and are looking into it,” the sources said on condition of anonymity. “We have asked for some more information such as CDs etc,” the sources said. The sources said the commission would carefully weigh the “evidence”. “Only if we feel that there is some evidence shall we send it to our judicial department for further scrutiny,” Nirvachan Sadan sources said.

“If we are ultimately convinced that there is a ground for taking action, we will take it,” the sources said. “We will then forward our recommendation for action along with the complaint to the Chief Election Office in Orissa,” the sources said. If an FIR had to be filed, it would be filed, the sources assured.

The sources cited a recent example from Jharkhand, where the EC had directed the concerned state’s chief secretary to file an FIR against a candidate accused of taking help from the Maoists to influence the Jamshedpur bypolls.

Ajay Sharma, a candidate of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha, allegedly took the help of Maoists to win the polls, his BJP rival Dineshanand Goswami had claimed. The BJP candidate had sent a CD to the EC in which Sharma was allegedly heard talking to Maoists Prabhat Bhuiyan and Samarji, the spokesman for the Maoists in Jharkhand.

Once an FIR is filed, it is up to the local police to take the case to the logical conclusion. The case then goes to the court for trial and evidence is again assessed. That takes years.