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Guwahati, Nov 15: Ahead of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly Elections, the Election Commission of India (ECI) issued show cause notices to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Congress General Secretary and Arvind Kejriwal, National Convenor of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on November 14 for allegedly making false statements against Prime Minister Narendra Modi while campaigning for the assembly elections.
According to reports, separate complaints were filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against the politicians prompting the poll panel to issue show cause notices seeking a response on why action should not be initiated against them. The leaders have to reply to the notices by November 16.
In its show cause notice to Arvind Kejriwal, senior principal secretary at EC Narendra N. Butolia, sought an explanation over two posts made from the official X handle of AAP against PM Modi wherein a video featuring Modi and industrialist Gautam Adani was posted on November 8 and a picture of both of them alleging that the prime minister works for the industrialist and not the people was posted the following day.
“The national convener of the Aam Aadmi Party is hereby called upon to explain the statements/allegations/averments, made in the alleged social media posts under reference, against a star campaigner of another national party and against the political party… and to show cause why appropriate action for violation of model code of conduct… should not be taken against you,” the show cause notice to Kejriwal reads.
Meanwhile, the ECI issued notice to Priyanka Gandhi on the basis of a complaint filed by BJP stating that the Congress leader made ‘unverified and false statements’ about PM Modi during a rally in the poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.
“Public generally believes that the statements made by the senior leader that too of a star campaigner of a National Party, are true, it is expected that such a leader is privy to and possesses factual base of the statements made by him/her. You must have verified the facts as stated in para 5 above so as to not leave any possibility of misleading the voters,” EC Secretary Amit Kumar said in its notice to Vadra.