Congress' Madhusudan Mistry and his supporters pulling down Narendra Modi poster in Vadodara
Madhusudhan Mistry, who is running against
Narendra Modi in Vadodara, was rebuffed today by the Election Commission, which has denied his request to replace Mr Modi's posters with his own.
The Election Commission has reportedly told the Congress leader to simply pick a different location, pointing out that there were 4,000 spots for poll posters in the city; only 1,000 had been booked by the BJP.
(Full coverage: India Votes 2014)Mr Mistry was arrested yesterday for ripping down posters of the BJP's prime ministerial candidate and trying to replace them with his own, with help from supporters. He was let off on bail later.
(Narendra Modi's opponent, arrested for tearing his posters, gets bail)After reviewing footage from news channels, the police booked Mr Mistry, 69, who is a General Secretary of the Congress and is considered to be close to the party's young vice-president,
Rahul Gandhi.
The BJP has put over a thousand hoardings of Mr Modi across the city. The party had booked all major advertisement kiosks and billboards in Vadodara more than a fortnight ago. Mr Mistry, after being named as Mr Modi's challenger from Vadodara, demanded an equal share in the space allocated for putting up election-related posters. The municipal corporation refused, arguing that these locations have already been allotted to the BJP.
Mr Mistry told NDTV that police and district officials were giving the BJP unfair and blatantly preferential treatment.
Mr Modi is running for Parliament from Vadodara in Gujarat and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. This is his first national election; he is currently a member of the Gujarat state legislature.