Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Monday lodged a complaint with the Election Commission against Prime Minister Narendra Modi accusing him of violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) in his speech at a public meeting at Balod recently.
Baghel, who also holds the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president post drove to chief electoral officer (CEO) Subrat Sahoo office along with his senior party leaders and handed over a written complaint.
In the complaint letter, with which a CD of PM’s speech in Balod on Saturday was attached, Baghel claimed that by raising issues of air strike, surgical strike as well as mentioning the achievements of the Indian Armed Forces, the PM had violated the model code of conduct.
Citing the records in the CD, the Congress leader claimed that while campaigning for BJP candidates Mohan Mandavi (Kanker), Vijay Baghel (Durg), Santosh Pandey (Rajnandgaon) and Chunnilal Sahu (Mahasamund), the PM violated the code of conduct five times during his speech.
The Prime Minister didn’t cite any of the achievements of his government and his entire speech was self praise at the cost of the gallantry of the India army, Baghel alleged.
Modi also claimed that the BJP was working to strengthen the Indian military while Congress was fighting the elections to weaken the military, Baghel said in his complaint and objected tone and tenor of the speech.
He said the PM tried to take political mileage from the achievements of the military.
The PM tried to mislead the audience and as there was a standing instruction of the commission against politicising the achievements of armed forces, his speech was a sheer violation of the MCC, the CM further alleged in his complaint letter. Baghel and other Congress leaders further demanded action against the Prime Minister and the BJP for the model code of the conduct violation.