Lok Sabha polls: EC sends notices over PM Modi, Rahul Gandhi speeches

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday issued separate notices to the presidents of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress seeking responses by 11am on Monday to complaints of violations of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Member of Parliament (MP) Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge himself, underlining that campaign speeches of star campaigners need to be judged “at a higher threshold of compliance”. Follow full coverage of the Lok Sabha elections here. 
The notices came days after Modi’s comments at an election rally in Rajasthan on Sunday that the Congress intended to redistribute public wealth to Muslims. Opposition leaders targeted Modi over the comments. Kharge called the remarks “hate speech”, and said that Modi had “lowered the dignity of political discourse”.
In the notice to BJP chief JP Nadda, ECI cited the representations of the Congress, the Communist Party of India (CPI), and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation or CPI(ML). “You [Nadda] are also directed, as president of the national party to bring to the notice of all your star campaigners to set high standards of political discourse and observe provisions of MCC in letter and spirit,” the notice said.
Also Read | Congress questions EC’s ‘bizarre equivalence’ in notices over Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi
The notice to Kharge referred to the BJP’s representation. It sought a response to the complaint against Rahul Gandhi’s April 18 speech in Kerala in which he had said that Modi was giving speeches advocating an idea for “one nation, one language, one religion”. The BJP accused Gandhi of “derisive and obnoxious utterances” against Modi.
EC’s notices did not mention relevant sections of MCC or the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that have been violated even though the attached complaints do. Neither notice mentions Modi or Gandhi by name.
The notices are a break from departure because ECI usually sends notices directly to the campaigner concerned. EC officials did not respond to requests for a comment on why the notices were sent to party chiefs.
Congress general secretary in-charge Jairam Ramesh said EC had acted on public pressure over the complaints against Modi, and questioned if the notices to Congress leaders was meant to “compensate” the notice sent to the BJP. “Is this what the EC means by a ‘level playing field’? It is clear that public pressure, motivated by the PM’s outrageous remarks, have forced the EC’s hand. But did it have to compensate by sending a notice on Rahul Gandhi’s remarks as well?” Ramesh said in a tweet.
Also Read | Lok Sabha elections 2024: How political families dominate India’s discourse
The BJP did not respond to requests for comments about the notice.
In its complaint, the Congress listed five alleged MCC violations by Modi during the ongoing general campaign. The five instances related to Modi accusing Congress, the opposition bloc, and Rahul Gandhi of being against Hindu culture, and of appealing to voters to vote against the Congress as it is a party of sinners who oppose a particular religion.
And in its complaint against Kharge, the BJP alleged the Congress president committed the “most condemnable and shameless breach” of the MCC by “claiming that scheduled castes and tribes are discriminated against” by citing a lack of invitation to the Ram Temple’s consecration. To be sure, the links the BJP submitted in its complaint to the poll panel did not appear to quote or show Kharge as saying he was not invited — the Congress leader pointed to the lack of invitations to the current and former Presidents of India.
The BJP also accused Kharge of “grossly misleading the voters by declaring that BJP is going to change the constitution if they win the elections” and said that BJP had never made such a statement. To be sure, some BJP leaders, such as MP Anantkumar Hegde, had made comments to this effect but it has not been articulated as the party’s line.
The ECI notices underlined that star campaigners were expected to contribute to a higher quality of discourse by providing an all-India perspective, which sometimes gets distorted in the heat of the contests at the local level. “Thus, the expectation from star campaigners is to provide corrective action or a sort of healing touch, when [the] intensity of local campaign disrupts or inadvertently crosses over such boundaries.”
ECI said that political parties will have to take primary and increasing responsibility for the conduct of their candidates in general and star campaigners in particular. It added national parties were expected to be the standard bearers in political and campaign discourse. “…as such [they] should also set high standards of compliance of the model code of conduct. …the individual star campaigner would continue to remain responsible for speeches made.”