Election Commission censured BJP’s Dilip Ghosh and Congress’ Supriya Shrinate for derogatory remarks against the dignity of women. Their communications will be specially monitored.
The Election Commission of India has “strongly censured” Bharatiya Janata Party member of Parliament from Bengal Dilip Ghosh and Congress social media and digital platforms chairperson Supriya Shrinate for their respective statements about West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and BJP Lok Sabha candidate from Mandi, Kangana Ranaut. In its orders against Ghosh and Shrinate made public today, the poll body said it had found both the incidents involving Ghosh and Shrinate prima facie violative of Model Code of Conduct (MCC). It would henceforth “specially and additionally” monitor their election related communications, it said.
In its order against Ghosh, who is contesting from Bardhman-Durgapur in West Bengal, the ECI said, “(It) is convinced that he has made a low-level personal attck and thus violated the provisions of Model Code of Conduct (MCC)”. On March 25, Ghosh had made a disparaging reference to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in his media address.
Following this, the Trinamool Congress had sent a 10-member team to the State Election Office to lodge protests.
On March 27, the ECI had sent show cause notices to Ghosh and Shrinate for violating the model code of conduct. They sent their replies on March 28 and March 29, respectively.
In the show cause notices, ECI had said that their remarks were found to be “undignified and in bad taste” and “offensive and insulting” and prima facie violative of provisions of MCC and the poll body’s advisory to political parties on March 1. EC cited Clause 2 of part I of MCC and Clause 3.8.2(ii), which say that parties and candidates must refrain from commenting on personal lives of their rivals.
While Shrinate had deleted her contentious Instagram post, the BJP distanced itself from Ghosh’s remarks and Nadda had sought a clarification on the same.
The ECI also sent a warning notice to the BJP and Congress party chiefs, JP Nadda and Mallikarjun Kharge, respectively, asking that they sensitise their functionaries during public communications and do not violate the MCC. The EC reiterated to the party chiefs that candidates and parties must refrain from actions and speech that “may be construed as being repugnant to the honour and dignity of women”.
In the order against Shrinate, the poll panel also said that it had “taken cognisance of the fact that Ms Shrinate is Chairperson, Social Media and Digital Platform of her party at national level and is expected to know sensitivities of wider communication”.
In the now deleted post, Shrinate had made a derogatory reference targeting Ranaut over her candidature from Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Ranaut tweeted a screenshot of the post and wrote: “We must free our daughters from the shackles of prejudices, we must rise above the curiosity about their body parts and above all we must refrain from using sex workers challenging lives or circumstances as some kind of abuse or slur… every woman deserves her dignity…”