The Election Commission has issued a show cause notice to Congress President Rahul Gandhi for accusing the Narendra Modi government of enacting a new law that allowed tribal to be shot at. The broad translation of his reported speech read, “Narendra Modi government has made a new law for tribals in which there is a line that says tribals can be shot at…They snatch your land, take away your jungle and water and then say that tribals can be shot at.”
The speech in question was reportedly made Madhya Pradesh’s Shahdol on 23 April. Serving a notice to Gandhi, the national poll body made it clear that making unverified allegations against political rivals violated the Model Code of Conduct. Gandhi has been 48 hours to submit his response to the Election Commission.
The Election Commission had sought a report from its officials in Madhya Pradesh after two BJP workers complained against the Congress president.
The EC’s decision to send Gandhi notice for possible poll code violation came on a day it gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on complaints of MCC violations. The EC has rejected complaints of poll code violations against Modi twice in as many days.
The first complaint against the prime minister was about his speech made in Wardha, where he had accused the Congress of hurting Hindu sentiments by inventing the phrase Hindu terror. In the same speech, he had also accused Gandhi of choosing Wayanad as his second constituency because Hindus were in minority there.
His second speech, also made in Maharashtra, had seen him seek votes by invoking the armed forces.