Censuring Bharatiya Janata Party leader Dilip Ghosh and Congress’ Supriya Shrinate, the Election Commission of India on April 1 said it was convinced that the two leaders made “low-level personal attacks” against women and thus violated the provisions of Model Code of Conduct.
In separate notices issued to both, the commission said their election related communications will be specially and additionally monitored from now on.
A copy of the notices were also marked to the respective party chiefs asking them to sensitise their functionaries to be careful while communicating in public domain.
“You may please issue specific advisory to all party functionaries involved in election campaign and in interactions in public domain not to commit such type of violation as in the instant case, besides following the Model Code of Conduct in letter and spirit so as to not trigger a chain reaction of similar comments vitiating the election campaign,” the ECI told the party chiefs.
The ECI had last week slapped show cause notices on Mr. Ghosh and Ms. Shrinate for their “offensive”, “insulting” and “undignified” comments against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and actor and BJP candidate Kangana Ranaut respectively.
Their remarks were “undignified and in bad taste” and violated the Model Code of Conduct, the ECI had said. The MCC has been in force since March 16 when the schedule for the Lok Sabha polls were announced.
The action against Ms. Shrinate was taken following a complaint by the BJP which alleged that she had posted a picture of Ms Ranaut along with “derogatory remarks” on X (formerly Twitter). The actor has been fielded by the BJP from Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi Lok Sabha for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The notice to Mr. Ghosh, BJP leader from West Bengal, was issued after a complaint by the Trinamool Congress for mocking the West Bengal Chief Minister’s family background.
