EC Issues Notice To BJP Korba Candidate Saroj Pandey On Religious Event Photo

BJP candidate from Korba Lok Sabha constituency in Chhattisgarh Saroj Pandey, also a sitting Rajya Sabha member, has been served a notice by the Election Commission for violation of model code of conduct (MCC) after her photograph allegedly appeared on the posters and banners at a religious event.

Sources in the Chief Electoral Officer’s office said here on Sunday that Ms Pandey who is pitted against her principal rival and Congress candidate Jyotsna Mahant, the incumbent MP, by BJP in Korba seat, has been asked by the EC to reply to the notice by Monday.

The notice was served based on the complaint lodged with the commission by the Congress.

The Congress alleged that BJP had put up banners and posters of Ms Pandey and several ministers of the Vishnu Deo Sai government for a religious programme of Dhirendra Shastri in Chirmiri town falling under Mahendragarh Assembly constituency in the state.

Mahendragarh Assembly segment is a part of the Korba LS constituency.

The Congress in its complaint alleged that Ms Pandey has misused the religious programme for campaigning and demanded to include expenditure of the event in her election expenditure.

Korba has become a high profile seat with firebrand saffron leader Ms Pandey taking on Ms Mahant, wife of Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Charan Das Mahant, to wrest the LS constituency from Congress in this poll.

Ms Mahant was one of the two MPs of Chhattisgarh who had braved ‘Modi wave’ in 2019 LS polls to win the LS elections.

The other Congress MP was Deepak Baij, who won the elections in Bastar (ST) LS seat in Chhattisgarh in 2019.

However, Congress has dropped Mr Baij in the seat in this poll and replaced him with former minister Kawasi Lakhma to contest from Bastar which went to polls in the first phase of elections in Chhattisgarh on April 19.

With Korba witnessing a pitched battle between BJP and Congress in the multi-cornered contest, Congress termed Ms Pandey as an ‘outsider’ while BJP dubbed Ms Mahant as ‘Lapata (the missing) MP’.

BJP in its campaign attacked Ms Mahant saying that the incumbent MP was never seen in the constituency and ‘suddenly’ appeared after five years to campaign for her re-election in the seat.

Congress has countered the BJP campaign against its candidate by terming Ms Pandey, a native of Durg in Chhattisgarh, as an “outsider”.