The Supreme Court on Thursday set May 6 as the deadline for the poll-panel to decide on all the cases of an alleged violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by Prime Minister and the BJP president.
The Election Commission that sat silent on 8 out of 11 cases on Friday gave clean chits to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in two more cases of alleged violations of Model Code of Conduct and its advisories.
With its latest decisions, the EC this week cleared Prime Minister in altogether five cases of alleged violation of the poll-code as well as the advisories it had issued asking the candidates and the political parties to refrain from referring to the activities of the armed forces while seeking votes in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
The EC on Friday also gave clean chits to the president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Amit Shah, in two cases.
The EC on Friday concluded that the Prime Minister’s speech at Nanded in Maharashtra on April 6 had not violated the MCC. In a veiled reference to Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s decision to contest from Wayanad in Kerala in addition to Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister had said that the leaders of the opposition party had been seeking election from constituencies where the “majority” community of the country had been the “minority”.
The Congress had lodged a complaint with the EC, accusing Prime Minister of flouting the MCC as well as the Representation of the People’s Act 1951 that bar candidates and political parties from making communal statements and invoking religion and castes of the voters while seeking votes.
Prime Minister had earlier made a similar statement at Wardha in Maharashtra on April 6, although the poll-panel concluded that he had not violated the MCC.
The EC on Friday also gave clean chit to Prime Minister in another case of an alleged violation of the MCC and its advisory. While speaking at a rally at his parliamentary constituency Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh on April 25, he had allegedly referred to February 14 terror attack at Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir and India’s February 26 air-strikes on a terror camp in Pakistan.
The commission had on March 9 and 19 issued two advisories asking the politicians not to display pictures of defence personnel or refer to their activities to seek votes during electioneering.
The EC had also concluded earlier this week that a similar statement by Prime Minister in Latur on April 9 had also not violated its advisory.
The commission on Friday cleared speeches by BJP president at Nagpur in Maharashtra on April 9 and at Krishnanagar in West Bengal on April 22. The Congress had alleged that Shah’s statements had violated the MCC as well as the advisories of the EC.
The commission also let off Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao by cautioning him and asking him to be more careful while making public statements in future.
The poll-panel, however, issued a notice to the senior BJP leader and union Culture Minister, Mahesh Sharma, in a case of an alleged violation of the poll-code.
