The Karnataka Congress has moved the Election Commission and filed a complaint against BJP national president JP Nadda, party’s social media in-charge Amit Malviya, and state unit chief BY Vijayendra for allegedly “intimidating” members of Schedule Caste/ Schedule Tribe to not vote for Congress in the Lok Sabha elections.
In the complaint filed to the Chief Electoral Officer in Bengaluru, the Congress also alleged that the BJP has violated the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by posting animated videos of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah by portraying their party as favouring a particular religion (Muslims) and suppressing members of SC/STs and OBC communities, with the intention to create feelings of enmity, hatred and ill-will against members of the SC/ST community.
“…the tenor of the video… is in the nature of intimidating persons belonging to SC/ST Community that leaders of Congress party are likely to favour Muslims at the cost of SC/ST Community. Since, elections to Lok Sabha is being held on 07/05/2024 in 14 constituencies, the video post of BJP on their official social media handle is nothing but intimidating SC/ST community not to cast a vote to Congress,” Ramesh Babu, Chairman, Media and Communication of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), said in the complaint.
The development comes a day after the official X handle of Karnataka BJP posted an animated video with the caption” “Beware.. Beware.. Beware..!” in Kannada.
The video purportedly showed caricatures of Gandhi and Siddaramaiah placing an egg with “Muslims” written on it in a nest along with three eggs marked as “SC, ST and OBC.”
It further showed Gandhi feeding “funds” to the bird that hatched out of the ‘Muslim’ egg.