BJP, Congress seek more time to respond to EC notice on poll code violation complaints

The BJP has sought one more week while the Congress has asked for 14 more days from the Election Commission to respond to the notices.

New Delhi: BJP and Congress on Monday sought more time from the Election Commission to respond to notices issued to their party chiefs based on complaints against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi respectively, sources said.

While the BJP sought a week's time to respond to the notice sent to party chief JP Nadda, Congress sought 14 days to provide its side of the story for the complaints against Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge himself and Rahul Gandhi.

In a first, the EC had on April 25 issued a notice to Nadda in connection with complaints of “hate speech” by Modi and asked him to respond by Monday.

Similarly, Kharge was also issued a notice on a complaint by the BJP against him and former party chief, Rahul Gandhi, on charges of making speeches that creates “linguistic and cultural” divides and levelling unproven allegations against Modi.

The poll panel did not directly name the Prime Minister, Rahul or Kharge in connection with the poll violations in its notices but shared copies of the complaints against them which were submitted to the EC by various parties.

The EC has forwarded the complaints filed by Congress, CPI and CPI(ML)L to Nadda in which they had taken exception to Modi's remarks in Rajasthan's Banswara where the Prime Minister claimed that the Congress wanted to redistribute the wealth of the people to Muslims and that the opposition party won't even spare the 'mangalsutras' of Hindu women.

In the almost identical letters, the EC asked the party chiefs to bring to the notice of all star campaigners to "set high standards of political discourse and observe provisions of model code of conduct in letter and spirit".