The Election Commission said on Thursday that Congress President Rahul Gandhi did not violate the Model Code of Conduct with his claim at a rally in Madhya Pradesh last week that Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah was a “murder accused”, PTI reported.
The BJP had filed a complaint with the poll panel against Gandhi for his remark.
The Election Commission said the complaint was examined in detail and after reading the complete transcript of speech sent by the district electoral officer of Jabalpur, it is of the view that no violation of the poll code is made out.
Addressing a rally in Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh on April 23, Gandhi had said, “Murder accused BJP chief Amit Shah. Wah, kya shaan hai! [Wow, what a glory!]”
In response, Shah had questioned Gandhi’s “legal knowledge”. “Let me tell you the gist of the order,” Shah had said a day later. “I was slapped with a fake case and the court has already passed its order that it was a politically motivated allegation and was without any evidence. I don’t want to make any comment on the legal knowledge of Rahul Gandhi.”
BJP corporator Krishnavadan Brahmbhatt, meanwhile, had filed a case in an Ahmedabad court, accusing Gandhi of making a statement that was both “false and defamatory”. Brahmbhatt said Amit Shah had been “discharged honourably by the Central Bureau of Investigation court”.
In 2014, a special court discharged Shah in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter killing cases, ruling that there was “no case” against him and that he had been implicated for “political reasons”. Sheikh, a wanted criminal, was killed in an alleged encounter in November 2005. His wife was allegedly raped and killed three days later, and his aide Tulsiram Prajapati was shot dead by the police in December 2006. Of the 38 people accused in the case, only 22 stood trial.
Four of the seven phases of the Lok Sabha elections, which began on April 11, have been completed. The results of all phases will be announced on May 23.
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