The Congress on Sunday filed a complaint with the Election Commission against the Facebook handle of Bharatiya Janata Party’s Jharkhand unit for publishing a video “in blatant violation of the Model Code of Conduct”.
The code is a set of guidelines issued by the Election Commission for candidates, political parties and governments to follow during an election. It sets guardrails for campaign events, speeches, election manifestos and other aspects of the polls.
Voting for the Jharkhand Assembly polls will be held in two phases on November 13 and November 20. The counting of votes will take place on November 23, alongside that of the Maharashtra elections.
In a letter to the Election Commission on Sunday, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh alleged that the BJP in Jharkhand had ascribed “false allegations and statements to leaders of the JMM [Jharkhand Mukti Morcha], Congress and the RJD [Rashtriya Janta Dal]” through an advertisement published on November 9.
The Congress, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Rashtriya Janata Dal are contesting the Assembly elections in the state as a coalition. The three parties are constituents of the INDIA bloc at the national level.
Ramesh states that the advertisement sought to portray the alliance leaders in a “negative and false light, with the sole intent of propagating false and baseless narratives against them”.
The video has tried to use actors who resemble the leaders of the Congress, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Rashtriya Janata Dal, said the Congress leader. He added that the advertisement claimed that “these leaders are ‘anti-Adivasi’ who are banding together under the garb of being pro-Adivasis to ultimately serve their own personal agendas”.
The advertisement is “rife with baseless allegations and falsehoods whose sole purpose is to unduly influence voters to dissuade them from voting for any opposition party and for the BJP to make unfair electoral gains in the state of Jharkhand”, read the letter.
Ramesh also noted that under the Model Code of Conduct, no political party, leader or candidate is allowed to campaign with false information about opponents or engage in activities deemed corrupt under the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
In view of this, he urged the Election Commission to order the immediate removal of all videos and take action against the BJP.
Also read: Facebook, Instagram failed to curb shadow ads in Jharkhand targeting CM Soren and others: new report
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