BJP’s star campaigner and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been issued a showcause notice by the Election Commission on Thursday for his “feeding biryani” remarks on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over Shaheen Bagh.

The poll body has asked Yogi Adityanath to submit his reply before 5 pm on February 7, failing which a decision will be taken without any further reference to him.

As reported by NDTV, in its letter to the BJP leader, the poll body had told him that “prima facie you have violated the provision of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), therefore the Commission gives you an opportunity to explain your position on or before 5 pm on February 7, 2020.”

During a campaign last week in Delhi’s Badarpur constituency, Yogi Adityanath accused Kejriwal and Congress of supporting divisive forces.

He had further made a controversial statement on the protesters at Shaheen Bagh by saying, “Kejriwal can’t provide clean drinking water to people of Delhi. A survey says that Delhi has the most polluted drinking water. But Kejriwal government provides biryani to the people sitting at the protest in Shaheen Bagh and other places in Delhi.”

He alleged that the protests were a ‘pretext’ and the real focus was the government’s decision on Article 370 and Ayodhya.

Shaheen Bagh, where the protesters have staged a sit-in against the contentious CAA has entered into 53rd day of protest and has become an epicentre of the CAA protest.

AAP has been batting on its five years of work in the national capital for the upcoming Assembly election while the BJP has been taking up the Shaheen Bagh protests as the poll agenda during its campaign.

UP CM was not the only leader who mentioned the area in his public rally while other leaders like Union Minister for state Anurag Thakur, BJP MP from West Delhi Parvesh Verma and BJP Model Town constituency candidate Kapil Mishra had also took it in their campaign and got notices from the poll body.

Anurag Thakur had incited the crowd by provocative sloganeering of “Desh ke Gaddaro ko….” on which crowd responded “Goli maaro s***o ko” during a campaign in Delhi. He was referring to the protests going on in Shaheen Bagh. Reacting on his act, the poll body had banned him for 72 hours from campaigning.

While Parvesh Verma referring to protesters at Shaheen Bagh had said, “They will enter your houses, rape your sisters and daughters”. He was banned for 96 hours from campaigning in Delhi.

Another BJP leader Kapil Mishra was banned from campaigning for 48 hours for his controversial tweets in which he referred Shaheen Bagh as “mini-Pakistan”.

A fresh controversial statement on Shaheen Bagh was given by Union Minister Giriraj Singh earlier in the day who claimed Shaheen Bagh had become a “breeding ground for suicide bombers” conspiring against the country from the capital.