KOLKATA: The Election Commission on Sunday imposed a 24-hour campaign ban on BJP’s Sayantan Basu and Trinamool Congress candidate from Arambag Sujata Mondal for their remarks in violation of the model code of conduct.
The 24-hour ban kicked in at 7pm on Sunday. With public meetings and rallies barred between 7pm and 10am on account of Covid-19, the ban will effectively restrain them from active campaigning for nine hours only.
Basu, in a speech at North 24 Parganas on April 12, had linked the April 10 firing by central forces in Sitalkuchi to the death of 18-year-old Ananda Barman, brother of BJP’s ‘shakti kendra pramukh’, and threatened that four people would be killed for each political murder.
In his response to the EC notice, Basu said his remarks were being misinterpreted and that they were not made with the intent to threaten voters but to show those violating the law would be dealt with sternly. He also denied making communal remarks. At the same time, he added that if any of his statements was construed as a violation of the model code, he regretted it.
Mondal, on the other hand, had said in an interview to a Bengali news channel, “The Scheduled Castes here are beggars by nature, and in spite of Mamata Banerjee helping them, they have been sold to BJP at a petty amount and are now torturing us. Today, my vehicle’s glass was damaged and they were after me with lathis, guns, bombs etc to kill me.”
In her reply to the EC notice, Mondal said her statement was forcibly recorded by the media after she was attacked and that she was only expressing her grief at the lifethreatening attempt on her “at the behest of paid BJP goons”. She said she didn’t intend to promote enmity or illwill and that the statements were made in good faith.