ECI Acts Strict When Other Leaders Use Identical Words Used By Modi & Shah : Dr Singhvi Tells SC

Directing the Election Commission to place on record its orders giving a clean-chit to PM Narendra Modi and BJP Chief Amit Shah for allegedly making hate speeches during the election campaigning, the Supreme Court will  consider on May 8 Congress MP Sushmita Dev's plea for appropriate action against them in that behalf.

Senior Advocate and Rajya Sabha member from the Congress Abhishek Manu Singhvi on Monday advanced that in cases where similar phraseology was employed by other politicians in the course of campaigning, action was taken but the PM and Shah have been exonerated.

The EC has earlier banned from campaigning for a stipulated period BSP President Mayavati and SP leader Azam Khan, UP CM Yogi Adityanath and BJP leader Maneka Gandhi on similar grounds.

Dr. Singhvi also contended that most of these decisions rendered by the Election Commission in favour of Modi and Shah have not been unanimous, and that the petitioner has not been supplied with the copies of these orders, nor the grounds for them have been disclosed.

The Senior Counsel submitted before the bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi that there is no set time schedule in the Model Code of Conduct for the Commission to resolve these complaints, and that the representations made by Dev came to be addressed only a month hence by which time over four phases of the elections have been completed, making these complaints more or less infructuous.

He urged the court to take up the larger issue of prescribing guidelines to govern instances of violation of the Model Code of Conduct in the future.

Last week, the SC had directed the poll body to take decision on all pending complaints by May 6, while considering Dev's petition who said that they have given 11 representations to the EC against the duo but it has taken decision on only two.

Before the expiry of the deadline set by the Supreme Court, the Election Commission of India had disposed of the complaints against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah alleging model code of conduct violations, giving clean chits to the duo. 

On Saturday, the EC gave Modi clean chit in a complaint regarding mentioning of Wing Commander's Abhinandan's return in connection with election campaigning. Last month, the Commission had issued an advisory against using photos and functions of armed forces in election campaigning. Amit Shah's comments, also on Wayanad, where in a speech in Nagpur, he said "Rahul Gandhi is contesting in such a place where it is impossible to say when a procession is taken out, whether it is a procession in India or Pakistan", were also not found objectionable by the ECI.

Before that, the poll panel had given clean chit to PM Modi for two of his speeches -- one in Latur last month urging first time voters to dedicate their votes in the name of Balakot air strike heroes and soldiers killed in the Pulwama attack, and the other in Wardha on April 1, slamming Congress chief Rahul Gandhi where he had also indicated that the Kerala constituency had more voters from the minority community.

On May 2, the Commission disposed of a third complaint against Modi, finding no violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by him in his speech in Barmer in Rajasthan where he had warned Pakistan, saying India's nuclear arsenal is not meant for Diwali. "Every other day they used to say 'we have nuclear button, we have nuclear button'. What do we have then? Have we kept it for Diwali?" he had said.