The Election Commission on Friday served a notice to Sujata Mondal Khan, the candidate of the Trinamool Congress at Arambagh in West Bengal, as she flouted the Model Code of Conduct, by calling people of the Scheduled Castes “beggars by nature”.
The commission noted that Sujata not only violated the Model Code of Conduct currently in force in West Bengal but also Sections 153 (A) (1) (a) and 505 (2) of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
The EC served the notice after receiving a complaint from the BJP on Sujata’s comment on the Scheduled Castes of West Bengal.
“As there is a scarcity of resources in the scheduled caste families, no matter how much Mamata Bandopadhyay (Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister) has helped them, the scarcity will not go. As there is a saying: some are actually beggars and others are beggars by nature,” the EC quoted Sujata saying in the transcript it attached with the notice issued to her.
“The Scheduled Castes here are beggars by nature”.
The EC gave Sujata 24 hours to explain her position on the statement she allegedly made.
(Published 16 April 2021, 17:54 IST)
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