New Delhi, April 25: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has, for the first time, taken cognisance of a complaint against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making “divisive”, “objectionable” and “malicious” speech at Banswara in Rajasthan and issued a notice to the BJP, seeking its response to the charges by 11 am on Monday.
Simultaneously, the Commission has asked Congress to respond to a complaint against their President Mallikarjun Kharge and leader Rahul Gandhi for levelling “malafide” and “utterly sinister” charges against Modi. The Congress too has been told to send their reply by 11 am on Monday.
Interestingly, in a complete departure from the past, the ECI has refrained from naming Modi, Kharge and Rahul in the two separate notices to both the rival parties. The notices, that have respective complaints as appendices, have been sent to party presidents.
In the ongoing elections, the ECI had previously issued notices for violation of the MCC directly to the erring candidates -- BJP’s West Bengal leader Dilip Ghosh and Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate who were accused of violating the model code of conduct.
The EC stated that it has “taken a view that while the individual star campaigner would continue to remain responsible for speeches made, the Commission will address party President/Head of the political party, on case-to-case basis.”
The Congress, CPI and CPI (ML) had complained to the ECI regarding the remarks made by Modi on April 21 in Banswara. Modi had said if Congress comes to power, it will redistribute the wealth to Muslims, labelling them as “infiltrators” and “those who produce more children”.
The Commission also asked Nadda and Kharge to bring to the notice of all star campaigners of the party to “set high standards of political discourse and observe provisions of model code of conduct in letter and spirit”.