The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday put a 48-hour prohibition on Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Azam Khan from campaigning activities for giving highly provocative speeches against the district election machinery and also on religious lines.
The Commission had earlier restrained Mr. Khan for 72 hours from campaigning activities.
The ECI said the impugned utterances had the propensity to polarise the elections, “which is not confined to the constituency only where the statement was made, but to the other parts as well, due to fast dissemination of information in this digital age”.
According to the poll panel, Mr. Khan had appealed to secure votes on religious lines that amounted to the violation of the Model Code of Conduct. The speeches were made in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur, from where he fought the Lok Sabha election. The restriction, which starts at 6 a.m. on Wednesday, also applies to giving any statement to the media.
Strongly condemning his speeches, it warned him against any repetition of the misconduct in future.
