AMN /NEW DELHI
The Election Commission today gave clean chit to PM Narendra Modi on his ‘nuclear button for Diwali’ remark at Barmer in Rajasthan. This is the third time that the poll body has given green signal to the prime minister. Earlier, the EC had said that PM Modi’s Wardha and Latur speeches are not violation of model code of conduct.
Officials said the commission examined the matter in detail and it was of the “considered view that in this matter no such violation of the extant advisories/provisions is attracted.”
The EC, they said, examined the complete certified transcript of the speech of 10 pages sent by the returning officer of the Barmer parliamentary constituency.
The Congress had moved the EC alleging that the prime minister “brazenly” violated the poll code by repeatedly invoking the armed forces in his speeches and demanded that a campaign ban be imposed on him for some time.
During a poll rally in Barmer on April 21, Modi had said India is no more afraid of Pakistan’s nuclear threats.
“India has stopped getting scared of Pakistan’s threats, I have done right, no? Else every other day they (Pakistan) used to say ‘we have nuclear button’….What do we have then? Have we kept it (nuclear button) for Diwali?” he had said.
Congress’s east UP in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has been issued a notice by National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) for laughing as a bunch of children use abusive language against PM Modi.
The Election Commission has also given clean chit to Congress president Rahul Gandhi for calling BJP chief Amit Shah a “murder accused” at a poll rally in Madhya Pradesh.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP candidate Rajyavardhan Rathore said that he was in the Army was Congress was in power, and “he knows the truth”. “Today the entire Army is with the Bharatiya Janata Party and Modi. They aren’t standing by us like that. We all know what happens at the borders,” he said. His statement came after Congress claimed that India had conducted six surgical strikes during their tenure.
Hours after BSP chief Mayawati accused the Congress of colluding with the BJP, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said she would rather die than benefit the BJP in this election. “I’ve not said I am putting weak candidates. I’ve said very clearly Congress is fighting this election on its own strength. I’d rather die than benefit BJP. We have chosen candidates that are either fighting very strongly or cutting BJP votes,” she said.
Senior BJP leader and finance minister today said the core issue was to get JeM chief Masood Azhar designated as a global terrorist by the United Nations, and it was not important that there was no mention of either Pulwama attack or incidents of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir in the resolution.
Addressing a joint press conference with Nirmala Sitharaman, Jaitley also questioned former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s claim that multiple surgical strikes were conducted during his tenure and dubbed them as “invisible and unknown”.
The Supreme Court is likely to hear a petition filed on Rahul Gandhi’s citizenship status next week. The home ministry had issued a notice to the Congress president asking him to clarify his position after BJP MP Subramanian Swamy claimed that a company’s record showed he held British citizenship.
The petition, filed by two social-political activists, wants the MHA to decide questions of Rahul’s citizenship and wants Rahul Gandhi to be disqualified and his name deleted from electoral rolls. The MHA had given two weeks to the Congress chief to reply to the notice.