New Delhi: On a petition filed by Congress MP Sushmita Dev, the Supreme Court of India directed the Election Commission (EC) on Thursday to decide the nine pending cases by Congress accusing PM Modi and BJP President Amit Shah of breaking the model code of conduct by purportedly delivering hate speeches and using the name of armed forces as well as holding a rally by PM Modi near Ahmadabad polling booth.
As per the petitioner advocate A M Singhvi, the party had lodged 11 complaints and the EC decided only two complaints after five weeks. “At this rate, the EC will take 270 days to decide the remaining nine complaints by which time other elections could be due,” he added.
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While EC advocate Rakesh Dwivedi said most of the complaints extracted two or three sentences from the allegedly offending speech. He said, “The EC has to get hold of the entire script of the speech, get it translated and put it before the full commission to take a decision whether the sentences contextually or otherwise violated MCC. It takes time. We have decided on two complaints and the orders passed effectively take care of four complaints.”
However, the bench accepted Sadhvi plea and asked EC to decide pending complaints against Modi and Shah by Monday, when the petition by Dev will be taken up for hearing.