Cracking down on controversial messaging in the election season, the Karnataka Police has issued a notice BJP chief JP Nadda and IT cell head Amit Malviya over a post on X put by the party's state unit.
A first information report (FIR) had been registered at the High Grounds Police station in Bengaluru in connection with the post and the two leaders were named in it. The investigating officer in the case has issued the notice them and they have been given a week to appear.
The controversial post contained a video showing the Congress favouring Muslims for reservation at the cost of the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes, an allegation that has been made by several top BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the past few days.
The Karnataka chief electoral officer had asked the state BJP to take down the post and, when that failed, the Election Commission sent a notice to X on Tuesday to remove it.
Stating that the post violated the legal framework, the Election Commission said in its notice to X, "An FIR has already been registered in the matter. It is further brought to your notice that Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka through Cyber Crime Division, Bengaluru has already directed X on 05.05.2024 to take down the objectionable post as per Section 79(3)(b) of Information Technology Act and rule 3(1)(d) of The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021. However, the post has not been taken down yet."
Attempting to access the post now throws up a "page doesn't exist" error message on the microblogging platform.
The Congress, which is the ruling party in Karnataka, had approached the Election Commission with a complaint against Karnataka BJP chief BY Vijayendra - son of former chief minister BS Yediyurappa - and alleged that the BJP wants to "provoke rioting and promote enmity".
Mr Vijayendra was also named in the police case, along with Mr Nadda and Mr Malviya.
Polling in all 28 constituencies in Karnataka was completed yesterday. Unlike the rest of south India, the BJP has done well in the state in the Lok Sabha elections, winning 17 seats in 2014 and 25 in 2019. The party hopes to repeat or better its performance this time as it makes a push to pick up more seats in the south as part of its target of winning 370 on its own and 400 for the NDA.
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