In a letter addressed to the Chief Election Commissioner, Sunil Arora, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPIM) has complained over what it calls \u201cbrazen violations\u201d of the model code of conduct by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).<\/p>\n
In the letter,\u00a0Nilotpal Basu \u2013 CPIM\u00a0politburo member \u2013 has urged the EC to \u201ckindly recall\u201d that the CPIM\u00a0had \u201cpointed out\u201d to it the \u201cimpropriety of the public broadcast by the Prime Minister\u201d. Referring to the public address by Narendra Modi after the destruction of a low-orbit satellite by an anti-satellite missile \u2013 which is being called \u201cMission Shakti\u201d \u2013 Basu stated that the EC had given a clean chit to the broadcast of the Prime Minister\u2019s speech when the CPIM had first raised complaints against it.<\/p>\n
It was however, only limited to examining the role of the broadcaster \u2013 Doordarshan \u2013 while stating that the Prime Minister\u2019s speech had not violated the model code of conduct.<\/p>\n
Basu mentioned in his letter however, that \u201cthe fundamental question was whether the Prime Minister, who is also a candidate of the BJP, can use the office and the prerogatives to try and influence for the sake of electoral benefit? However, the Commission chose to restrict the question to the role of the DD and gave the national broadcaster a clean chit.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that \u201cNow our attention has been drawn to a tweet by Doordarshan News @DDNewsLive for urging people to watch live the PM\u2019s addresses for his #MainBhiChowkidar programme through videoconferencing\u201d. A printout of the tweet was also submitted to the ECI along with the complaint.<\/p>\n
Basu\u2019s letter further accuses the BJP of making an \u201cunabashed attempt\u201d of politicising the Balakot air strikes and milking the situation to their political advantage in spite of the EC clearly forbidding the \u201cuse of armed forces in the election campaign\u201d.<\/p>\n
He also noted that the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath\u2019s reference to the Indian Army as \u201cModi ji ki sena<\/em>\u201d (PM Modi\u2019s army) \u2013\u00a0was also an outright violation of the model code.<\/p>\n The CPIM further pointed out in the letter that the Prime Minister making a veiled reference to the recent outcome of a National Investigative Agency (NIA) court case where he compared the accused to the entire Hindu community was also flouting of the model code. This took place when the Prime Minister was addressing political rally in Wardha in\u00a0Maharashtra when he stated that the Congress had come up with the coinage \u201cHindu terror\u201d and had hurt the Hindus by doing so.<\/p>\n The CPIM has urged the EC to take \u201cappropriate measures\u201d so that polling can be \u201cfree and fair\u201d in the country. Citing these examples, the party has accused the BJP of vitiating the atmosphere in the country by violating the codes laid down by the EC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Now DD News has tweeted about another PM programme, the CPIM pointed out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":5035,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"adace-sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-5034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n