The Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday asked Facebook to remove two political posters that had in it photographs of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman – which were shared by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker from Delhi, Om Prakash Sharma.
This is possibly the first case of action for violation of the EC’s model code of conduct on social media. The code comes into effect with the announcement of the dates of election by the EC.
The EC has already asked all political parties to stop making references to the armed forces in their political campaign, and to not use the armed forces for political gains.
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The two posters were shared by Sharma on Facebook on March 1. Both had photographs of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP national president Amit Shah and Sharma, who is an MLA from Delhi.
One of the posters says: “Modi ji dwara itne kam samay main bahadur Abhinandan ko wapas lana Bharat ki bahut badi koontinik vijay hai (Bringing back Abhinandan in such a short time through Modi ji is a major diplomatic win for India)”.
The other poster has this written: Jhuk gaya hai Pakistan, laut aaya hai desh ka veer Jawan (Pakistan has bowed down, the braveheart of the country is back)”.
