EC bars all campaigning by election code violators

Adityanath, Mayawati, Maneka, Azam can’t address rallies for 48 to 72 hrs

NEWDELHI: The Election Commission (EC) issued a flurry of orders on Monday, barring Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, Union minister Maneka Gandhi, and Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan from campaigning for varying periods of time for their intemperate utterances on the campaign trail.

Ec’ s actions came shortly after it was pulled up by the Supreme Court. A bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi took a dim view of its submission that it didn’t have much powers and wasn’t in a position to take any action other than issuing advisories. “Mr Election Commission, you have to act very promptly. You cannot drag matters like this. Get into action immediately,” CJI said.

Soon after, EC issued its orders barring Adityanath and Mayawati. It barred the former from campaigning for three days, and the latter, two days, both beginning at 6am Tuesday, for flouting the model code of conduct by referring to religion and caste in their speeches. This is the first such punishment meted out to any leader this political season. Interestingly, the court reviewed the five notices issued till Monday morning by EC. It noted that two were to Adityanath and one to Mayawati and that neither leader had responded.

“What have you done since they have not responded?” CJI Gogoi asked EC’S counsel, who had no answer.

The SC was hearing a PIL filed by an NRI yoga teacher based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), seeking a direction to the EC to take “strict action” against political parties if their spokespersons made remarks based on caste and religion lines ahead of this summer’s Lok Sabha elections.