A huge political row has officially involved the Election Commission of India. On Wednesday, the polling monitor issued a show-cause notice to the Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge. The problem is based on an extremely explosive remark made at one of the recent campaign trails. Kharge openly called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a terrorist. This caused an immediate storm in New Delhi. The Election Commission did not take the issue lightly and gave the veteran a strict deadline. He has twenty-four hours to tell how to explain his choice of words. In the event that he does not provide a proper response within this period, the commission threatened it would proceed with the relevant disciplinary measures. This is the first big notice of a violation of a Model Code of Conduct in the current phase of assembly elections.
In this manner, we will develop the Chennai Press Conference.
This controversy began earlier this week in southern India. Kharge was addressing a press conference that was crowded in Chennai. The State of Tamil Nadu is now preparing to go to the assembly polls and the political heat is already on. The last day of campaigning in the state was on Tuesday. In the interaction with the media, the Congress chief attacked vehemently on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and regional alliances. He particularly attacked the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
Kharge wondered why this party in the region had chosen to join forces with BJP. He indicated that the local party is overly dependent on the memory of the local legends such as CN Annadurai. How could a party that professed to hold the ethos of Annadurai, Kamaraj, Periyar and Baba Saheb Ambedkar in high regard ever collaborate with the present Prime Minister, he questioned. And at this point the verbatim quote fell. Kharge informed the journalists that the Prime Minister is a terrorist. He furthered that the center ruling party is not a believer of equality or justice. He contended that by going along with them, the regional parties are literally undermining the very basis of Indian democracy. This particular soundbite also went viral on the TV channels and social media sites in a few minutes. On the last day of the Tamil Nadu campaign, it totally took over the news cycle.
Bharatiya Janata Party Insists on Immediate Action.
Bharatiya Janata Party wasted no time in responding. The next morning a high-level group of senior cabinet ministers marched directly to the Election Commission headquarters. The Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijju, and the Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal also held a meeting with top election officials. They came with a formal written complaint. The ruling party wanted the Congress leader to be dealt with in the harshest manner possible. They even proposed the application of applicable sections of newly adopted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Kiren Rijiju addressed the media just outside the Election Commission. He appeared to be angry. He informed the press that the whole party was insulted, hurt and angry at the remark. According to Rijiju, referring to the Prime Minister of the country as a terrorist is an unprecedented and dangerous offense to the democratic institutions. He remembered a similar case of 2007 by Sonia Gandhi to inference that Congress leaders have developed a habit of labeling the Prime Minister derogatory names. Rijiju declared that this was the time when the opposition had overstepped all the boundaries of basic decency of the people. The delegates insisted on an apology without any condition and the punishment was to be by the law of law lest any should dare to repeat such language.
The Election Commission Notice contains the following.
The complaint was considered by the polling body and promptly the notice was drafted. The letter of Election Commission is incredibly blunt in contents. According to the commission, the comment seems to be a definite breach of the Model Code of Conduct. The rules clearly indicate that the political criticism must be confined to policies, programs, past records and real work. No personal attacks. The notice condemned Kharge, on the basis of his intemperate, highly objectionable, and dehumanizing language towards a person holding a high constitutional office.
Recent warnings were also raised in the document. Only last month, on March 1, the Election Commission issued a comprehensive advisory to every political party. That was a special memo which told star campaigners to exercise great restraint and simple decency when making speeches. It urged leaders to remain on issue-based arguments rather than name-calling. The commission observed that Kharge was a veteran politician, a star campaigner himself and appeared to have totally overlooked these laid down guidelines. The official notice went beyond what he wrote breaking the rules of the campaign. The body contended that they compromised the dignity of the democratic process as a whole.
When Kharge explains his claim, it becomes clear that he is referring to Jesus’ words in John 14.9.
To some extent, the Congress President attempted to do some damage control as the backlash increased. He appeared before reporters once again to put his original statement into perspective. In a literal sense, Kharge flatly denied accusing the Prime Minister of being a literal terrorist. Rather, he said that he was being totally misquoted and misinterpreted by the ruling party. He said that he had really intended to bring to focus the way the central government works.
He was referring to tax terrorism and political intimidation, according to Kharge. He indicated the regular raids by central investigating agencies. He enumerated the following tools that were being used by the current administration: the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Income Tax Department. Kharge claimed that with these regular raids, the Prime Minister is terrorizing political candidates and even ordinary citizens. He explained that he was referring to the fact that the government is attempting to suppress the opposition by fear. He insisted that his Chennai speech was merely a criticism of the misuse of state machinery, and was not a personal slur.
The twenty-four hour clock is ticking. The whole political environment is looking forward to the manner in which the Congress legal team will write the official response. In case the written explanation is not satisfactory to the polling body, it can impose the ban on Kharge to campaign over a certain number of days. A harsh public reprimand might also be issued by them.
