A day after senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh alleged that Home Minister Amit Shah had called 150 District Magistrates ahead of counting of votes, accusing him of ‘brazen intimidation’, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Sunday asked the leader of the grand old party to share the information of his claims with it.
In a post on X, the Congress on Saturday wrote, “The outgoing Home Minister has been calling up DMs/Collectors. So far he has spoken to 150 of them. This is blatant and brazen intimidation, showing how desperate the BJP is.”
“Let it be very clear: the will of the people shall prevail, and on June 4th, Mr Modi, Mr Shah, and the BJP will exit, and the INDIA Janbandhan will be victorious. Officers should not get under any pressure and must uphold the Constitution. They are under watch,” he said.
In a letter addressed to the Congress leader, the ECI while referring to his post on X, said it has come to the commission’s notice that he has alleged that the Home Minister had called and spoken to over 150 DMs/Collectors to intimidate the officers before scheduled counting of votes on June 4.
The poll panel noted that during the period of enforcement of Model Code of Conduct (MCC), all officers are under deemed deputation of the Commission and report directly to it for any directions.
“However, no DM has reported any such undue influence as alleged by you. As you are aware, the process of counting of votes is a sacred duty cast upon every RO and such public statements by you tend to put an element of doubt and thus, deserves to be addressed in larger public interest,” the ECI said.
It further said, “Therefore, you being a responsible, experienced and very senior leader of a national party must have made such a public statement, just before the day of counting, based on facts/ information you believe to be true. It is requested that details of 150 DMs to whom such calls have been allegedly made by the Home Minister along with the factual matrix/ basis of your information are shared by 7 pm on Sunday so that appropriate action can be taken.”
The Lok Sabha elections were held in seven phases between 19th April and 1st June.
Counting will take place on 4th June