On Monday, April 15, the Election Commission of India slammed the Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath and Bahujan Samajwadi Party supremo Mayawati for violating the Model Code of Conduct which came into force on March 10, reported India Today.

The election watchdog has ordered Adityanath not to campaign for three days starting from April 16 at 6 am in the form of public meetings, media interviews, and road shows. Whereas, Mayawati is barred for 48 hours.

Why are they barred from campaigning?

The EC issued a notice to Yogi Aditynath for his communal comments while addressing a rally in Meerut. Attacking Mayawati’s vote appeal to Muslims,  Adityanath had said that if they believe in ‘Ali’ then we have ‘Bajrangbali’. The bigoted comment soon created controversy. Similarly, Mayawati was served notice for asking the Muslim community to vote for their party and not vote for BJP.

SC thrashed EC

The move from EC came amidst its failure to safeguard model code of conduct (MCC) on various instances. The EC took the stringent decision after it was drubbed by the Supreme Court for its incompetency to take proper steps. The apex court while hearing a public interest litigation against the spate of hate speeches spewed by political leaders before elections referring to EC said, “duty-bound to take action and cannot sleep over such issues”.

The apex court has summoned an EC official on April 16 to examine the powers that are rested in EC’s hands after being informed that EC does not have enough power to lodge complaints against parties for violating MCC, so they adhere to issuing notice, reported News18. The commission had said the court that they don’t have powers to disqualify persons. However, the apex court replied by saying that the EC has failed to act upon these statements.

The EC had earlier issued a notice to Adityanath for his “Modi ki Sena” comment. However, not stringent action was taken against him.

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