Finance
In an unprecedented move, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has issued notifications to political parties inquiring about suspected violations of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by their star campaigners. On Thursday, the election panel wrote to BJP President J P Nadda about complaints against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge about complaints against both him and party leader Rahul Gandhi.
This is a break from the previous practice of serving notices of alleged MCC violations directly to the candidate or star campaigner in question. Even during the ongoing campaign for the Lok Sabha election 2024, all MCC notifications delivered by the ECI were issued directly to party leaders, including Dilip Ghosh of the BJP and Congress leaders Randeep Surjewal and Supriya Shrinate, and AAP leader Atishi.
The ECI has asked Nadda and Kharge to provide ‘comments’ by 11 a.m. on April 29. Although the Commission did not identify the Prime Minister, the letter to Nadda includes objections from the Congress, the Communist Party of India, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). One of them includes comments about Modi’s recent address in Banswara, Rajasthan, in which he named Muslims and said that if elected, the Congress party will split the nation’s riches among “infiltrators” and “those who have more children.”
The ECI’s notice to Kharge includes complaints filed by the BJP, alleging he and Rahul Gandhi violated the MCC. The BJP claimed that during a speech in Kottayam on April 18, Gandhi made ‘false allegations’ against the PM, stating that he had advocated for ‘one nation, one language, and one religion’. Additionally, the notice mentions that Kharge, in comments made to media on the same day, said President Droupadi Murmu was not invited to the Ram Temple consecration ceremony because she is a member of the Scheduled Tribes.
“In view of the…plenary power of the political parties to nominate or withdraw the star campaigner’s status with associated responsibility and authority to control their star campaigners, the Commission 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 ECI wrote in the notices to Nadda and Kharge.
The ECI advised both Nadda and Kharge to remind their star campaigners to “set high standards of political discourse and observe provisions of MCC in letter and spirit”.
Source:IE
