NEW DELHI: Election Commission has granted the BJP and Congress an additional week to submit their respective comments on complaints filed against one another relating to statements made by their leaders allegedly in violation of the poll code and other laws.
The extension of the original November 18, 1 pm, deadline comes as per requests received by the poll panel from both the parties, possibly in view of their preoccupation with assembly polls in Jharkhand and Maharashtra as well as bypolls. While the campaigning for current round of polls ended on Monday, polling is set to be held on Wednesday, followed by counting of Saturday.
This means that by the time the parties’ replies land at EC’s door, the assembly polls and bypolls would already be over, leaving no scope for any election curbs. It remains to be seen if EC will deem the violations serious enough to warrant an FIR.
The Congress had complained against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah for allegedly labelling Congress as anti-SC/ST/OBC, and sought a ban on campaigning by the two for the remainder of the campaign period. The BJP on the other hand complained to EC about Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s remarks during campaign alleging that BJP was promoting RSS, letting Gujarat take away key investment projects from other states and also compromising the independence of Constitutional and statutory bodies like EC, CBI, ED etc. It had sought a restraint on Rahul “handing out” such “lies” and demanded an FIR against Rahul and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge in this regard.