The Congress party demanded the Election Commission of India (ECI) action against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s President J.P. Nadda and other party leaders for publishing a campaign video allegedly showing Congress favouring Muslims in reservation and fund allocation.
The High Grounds police in Bengaluru registered a case against BJP national president JP Nadda, IT cell head Amit Malviya and state president B Y Vijayendra, under section 125 (Promoting or attempting to promote on ground of religion, race, caste, community or language, feeling of enmity or hatred, between different classes of the citizens of India) of Representation of People Act and 505 (2) (Statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill will between classes) of Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Congress said that it promotes feelings of enmity, hatred and ill-will against members of SC/ST community. The party alleged the video is “intimidating SC/ST community not to cast a vote to Congress”.
The 17-second clip, captioned “Beware.. Beware.. Beware..!” in Kannada, shows Rahul Gandhi and Siddaramaiah placing a large egg labelled ‘Muslims’ in a nest along with ‘SC’, ‘ST’ and ‘OBC’ eggs.
After an explosion sound, a large hatchling with a skull cup and beard is shown staring at the three other hatchlings. The video then shows Gandhi feeding all the ‘funds’ to the large hatchling, which grows bigger and pushes out the other three from the nest.
“In the said video, SC, ST and OBC community are projected to be ‘Eggs’ in a basket and it is narrated that as though Rahul Gandhi is planting another egg i.e. Muslim community and is projected as though funds are fed into the mouth of Muslim community and that the Muslim community kicks out SC, ST and OBC communities,” the party said in its petition.
It added, “BJP has been falsely accusing that Congress party will include Muslims to OBC category and with such false propaganda has been soliciting votes during Lok Sabha elections.” Congress said it is “unfathomable” as to how the State level media monitoring committee approved this video to be uploaded by the BJP.