EC seeks response on charges of poll code violation by PM Modi, Rahul Gandhi

New Delhi: The Election Commission has taken cognisance of complaints about the violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and issued a notice to the BJP. The notice to BJP president J.P. Nadda on Thursday is over the PM’s “divisive” comments against a community during a speech in Rajasthan on April 21.

This is the first time that the EC has taken cognisance of a complaint against any Prime Minister.

The EC added that the campaign speeches made by those holding high offices have more serious consequences. It has given the BJP time till 11 am on Monday to respond.

Though the EC has not named the PM directly in its notice, it has, however, attached the complaint letter filed by the Congress Party over this issue.

The EC has also issued a notice to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on a complaint filed by the BJP against him and Rahul Gandhi regarding their remarks.

“The commission is in receipt of representations from various political parties/civil society organisations and individual entities alleging violations of the MCC by speeches made during campaigning by some of your star campaigners. These speeches are alleged to be in violation of the MCC,” the EC said in its notice to Nadda.

Reacting to the notice, the Congress said the EC was being “super, super cautious” when it comes to complaints against the PM. The Congress had termed Modi’s speech as “objectionable and malicious” and alleged that he had made “false and divisive insinuations targeted at a particular religious community and a clear provocation to the general public to act out and breach the peace, potentially against such a religious community”.

Modi is a star campaigner for the BJP. The EC has also asked Nadda to ask all his party’s star campaigners to set high standards of political discourse and observe provisions of the MCC in letter and spirit. The EC said the star campaigners are expected to contribute to a higher quality of discourse by way of providing an all-India perspective.

“The star campaigners are thus expected to utilise this privilege for propagating the programme of the political parties, therefore, their speeches in the campaign space necessarily needs to be judged at a higher threshold of compliance,” the poll body said.

The EC further wrote to Nadda saying that it has taken a view that while individual star campaigners would continue to remain responsible for speeches made by them, the commission will address the party chiefs “on a case-to-case basis”, thus, fixing higher responsibility on the party heads.

The Congress, CPI, CPI (M-L), civil society groups and some individuals had filed complaints with the EC regarding the remarks made by Modi on April 21 in Banswara. These complaints had referred to Modi's allegations that the Congress wanted to redistribute the wealth of the people to Muslims and that the Opposition party won’t even spare the “mangalsutra” of women.

Though political parties had lodged complaints against Mr Modi’s speeches during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls too, the EC had given a clean chit to him despite a dissent note by then election commissioner Ashok Lavasa.

Separately, the EC, on a complaint by the BJP, issued notice to Kharge over Gandhi’s utterances in Tamil Nadu. The BJP had said that in Coimbatore, Gandhi alleged that the PM was attacking “our language, history and tradition” and was “pushing for one nation, one language, one religion”.

It also accused Kharge of violating the MCC by claiming that he was not invited to the Ram temple consecration ceremony due to discrimination against SCs and STs.