The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Election Commission (EC) to decide by 6 May all pending complaints against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah over poll code violations.
The EC, late on Thursday evening, gave a clean chit to Modi over comments made at a rally in Barmer, Rajasthan, on 29 April, invoking the armed forces. The Congress had filed a complaint saying that Modi’s action was a “brazen violation” of the model code of conduct.
“A detailed report of the chief electoral officer, Rajasthan was obtained... The matter has been examined in detail in accordance with the extant advisories, provisions of the model code of conduct and after examination of complete transcript of speech of 10 pages...Commission is of the considered view that in this matter no such violation of the extant advisories/provisions is attracted,” the EC observed.
This is the third clean chit that the EC has given to Modi over allegations of violation of the poll code. It had earlier given Modi a clean chit on two complaints made by the Congress. One was about a speech in Latur last month when he urged first-time voters to dedicate their votes to the armed forces. The other complaint was about a speech by Modi in Wardha on 1 April criticizing Congress president Rahul Gandhi for choosing to contest from Wayanad in Kerala.
Representing Congress member of Parliament Sushmita Dev of the Congress in the Supreme Court on Thursday, advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the party has submitted 11 complaints of poll code violation against Modi and Shah, but even after five weeks, only two were decided. He requested the court to direct the EC to decide on the others quickly.
Rakesh Dwivedi, the counsel for the Election Commission, said that of the 11 complaints, four have been almost decided. He said complaints were made by taking out a few lines from a speech and decisions must be made on the basis of the entire context. The transcripts of the speeches, which are often in a local language, needs to be arranged and translated before a decision is made and this takes time, Dwivedi contended.
In a separate development, the EC on late Thursday evening also issued a show cause notice to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath asking him to explain within 24 hours his comments made during a public meeting in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh on 19 April.
Anuja contributed to this story.
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