EC sends notice to BJP Delhi chief for allegedly derogatory post about Arvind Kejriwal
The post, uploaded on November 5, was a satirical video that purported to depicted a day in the life of the Aam Aadmi Party’s national convenor.
The Election Commission of India on Tuesday sent a notice to Bharatiya Janata Party’s Delhi unit chief Virendraa Sachdeva for sharing allegedly derogatory posts about Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on the party’s official social media handles.
The post, uploaded on November 5, was a satirical video that purported to depict a day in the life of the Aam Aadmi Party’s national convenor. The video consisted of a voice-over referring to a regular day in Kejriwal’s life and included references to allegations made by the BJP about the alleged liquor policy scam.
On November 16, Aam Aadmi Party MP Raghav Chadha filed a complaint against Sachdeva with the polling body.
In its notice to Sachdeva on Tuesday, the Election Commission asked the Delhi BJP president to explain the statements made in the social media posts by November 23 at 8 pm.
“The Commission is prima facie of the view that the tweet and the post mentioned in aforesaid complaint violate the provisions of the model code of conduct read with relevant election and penal laws”, the notice said.
Chadha had said that the BJP is trying to tarnish the image of Kejriwal by posting “ridiculous content” on social media, reported The Indian Express.
“They are trying to do character assassination,” he told reporters. “We have appealed to the Election Commission to take action against the BJP. There must be some decorum even in politics. My request to the BJP would be to stop the character assassination of people. If you want to fight Kejriwal, then fight in the election field. We have explained in detail in the complaint.”
Last week, the Election Commission issued a notice to Kejriwal in connection with two satirical posts by the Aam Aadmi Party on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
The first social media post, a video titled “Modi’s fascinating daily routine”, was posted on November 8. The video featured a caricature of the prime minister referring to industrialist Gautam Adani as his “master”, and claimed that he takes directions from him.
The second post, uploaded on November 9, featured a morphed image of Modi in the backdrop of a larger image of Adani. The text in the post read: “I, Narendra Modi, work not for the people, but for my master.”
The BJP alleged in a complaint that through the posts, the Aam Aadmi Party sought to mislead voters for electoral gain.
