The Congress on Monday filed a complaint to the Election Commission against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remark comparing the party’s Lok Sabha polls manifesto with the ideology of the pre-independence Muslim League.
A Congress delegation met the EC officials and raised several issues including the use of pictures and large cut-outs of the prime minister in government buildings and colleges. Party leaders including Pawan Khera, Mukul Wasnik, Salman Khurshid and Gurdeep Sappal were part of the delegation.
Addressing an election rally in Rajasthan’s Ajmer on April 6, Modi had claimed that the Lok Sabha polls manifesto of the Congress party bears an imprint of the Muslim League during the freedom movement.
“Every page of the manifesto reflects the mindset of breaking India into pieces,” he had said.
Modi’s remarks drew sharp reaction from the opposition party which accused him of spreading falsehood about the Congress manifesto.
"We have raised such points before the EC on which we have also discussed earlier and have been registering our objections. Pictures of the prime minister wearing a military uniform are being misused during the election campaign. There is already an advisory of the EC that this cannot be done during elections. We have urged the EC to take action on this issue as the BJP is continuously committing such crimes,” Khera said, after meeting the EC officials.
Earlier in the day, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge lashed out at Modi’s remarks against the party manifesto, saying it was the “ideological ancestors” of the Bharatiya Janata Party that had supported the British and the Muslim League against Indians in the freedom struggle.
“Everyone knows how Shyama Prasad Mukherjee formed his governments in Bengal, Sindh and the North-West Frontier Province in the 1940s in coalition with the Muslim League,” Kharge said in a post on X.
The Congress filed another complaint with the poll panel against the use of armed forces in the election campaigning by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and the EC's notifications in this regard.
