On May 4, the IT wing of the Karnataka BJP posted a controversial video of an animated video claiming that if the Congress comes to power, it will take away the reservations from the SC, ST and OBC sections and give them to the Muslim community.
The Congress strongly condemned this and filed a complaint with the Chief Electoral Officer of the state on Sunday. In this case, The Indian Express has found that the Election Commission of India is going to write a letter to the company to remove this video published by the Karnataka BJP from the X site.
Meanwhile, the Congress is learned to have submitted its reply to the Election Commission’s notice to party president Mallikarjun Kharge on April 25, alleging that star speaker Rahul Gandhi had violated the Model Code of Conduct (MCC).
Similarly, while a notice has been sent to BJP president JP Natta alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi violated the election code of conduct, it is known that the party has sought a second time to respond to the notice.
This time the Election Commission has moved away from the practice of sending notices directly to the concerned leaders and instead asked the party leaders to respond. Both Natta and Kharge were supposed to send their replies by April 29, but they sought an extension and the commission agreed to give them more time till May 6.
Kharge was asked to respond to Rahul’s complaint on “false allegations” that the prime minister wants “one country, one language, one religion”. The Election Commission issued a notice to Natta, citing complaints against the prime minister’s speech in Rajasthan’s Banswara last month.
In it, he referred to Muslims and made the controversial and untrue criticism that the Congress, if it comes to power, will redistribute the country’s wealth to “infiltrators” and “those who have more children”.
In the matter of the video released by the Karnataka BJP, the Election Commission seems likely to take action under the MCC to remove the post, but is yet to decide whether any action will be taken against the party.
Animated video, “Beware…Beware…Beware..!” In Kannada, one character shows Rahul placing a large egg labeled ‘Muslims’ in a nest, along with three smaller eggs labeled ‘SC’, ‘ST’ and ‘OBC’. The Rahul character smiles with another figure depicting Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
As the chicks hatch, Rahul’s character is shown feeding ‘Nidhi’ to the chick ‘Muslim’, who is shown wearing a skull cap. An animated video was released showing ‘Muslim’ hatching and growing bigger and eventually evicting the others from the nest.
In his campaign speeches, Modi accused the Congress of wanting to “loot” the reservation of SCs, STs and OBCs to create a reservation for its “Muslim vote bank”.
The Karnataka Congress on Sunday filed a complaint seeking action against Natta, state BJP president PY Vijayendra and party’s national media in-charge Amit Malaviya. The post, it said, was “clearly with the intention of deliberately inciting riots and promoting enmity between different religions…”
Responding to the Congress complaint, Malviya in a post on X said: “The Congress and its environment have filed FIR(s) against the BJP’s national and state leadership for this post. Didn’t the Congress make the call hoping to slip the monstrous promises in their manifesto? Congress should thank the BJP for taking their manifesto to the people in a way that even they could not. So take a chill pill. India saw your evil plans. Now in the election, he posted that they should be kicked out.
The Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer came to know about the social media platform through the State Nodal Officer appointed under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and wrote a letter asking X to route the request through the Election Commission of India.
According to the voluntary code of conduct, social media platforms are required by the ECI to take “expeditious action on valid legal claims”.
Last month, X reported that it had removed some posts of political parties and candidates at the request of the Election Commission, but it did not accept it. The positions of Aam Aadmi Party, YSRCP, TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and state BJP president Samrat Chaudhary.
