Mumbai: Mumbai Congress president Milind Deora Thursday wrote a letter to the Election Commission of India (ECI) demanding that the commission ask the BJP to obtain a pre-certificate of its statement/videos which the party is likely to issue on April 27, 2019 as required by the recent guidelines of ECI.
Mr Deora has made this demand to ensure that his party gets a chance to reply to any claims made by the BJP on April 27, since it would be the last day of election campaigning and other parties would not get a chance to reply to any allegations made on that day.
The election campaign for the Lok Sabha polls 2019 in Mumbai and surrounding parliamentary seats will come to an end on April 27, 2019 at 6.00pm. So, any statement or contents issued on April 27, 2019, will be published either in the evening of the same day or April 28, which will deprive other parties of an opportunity to counter the statements, claims or any condemnations made by the BJP.
As per the letter, the content, in any manner, against any candidate or party means that the concerned person or party cannot revert to those negative averments made by the BJP on April 27. The letter asks the ECI to direct the BJP to obtain pre-certification of statements/content/videos etc. which it is likely to issue on April 27, 2019.
Mr Deora said, “The BJP, a political party, will give a fitting reply to Raj Thackeray in adopting the same modus operandi on April 27, 2019.”
He stated, “That will deprive others since the person or party concerned cannot revert to those negative averments made by the said BJP on April 27, 2019.”
Hence, the guidelines issued by the ECI about publication of statements, social media content etc. in the period between when the campaign ends and voting starts as prescribed under section 126 of the RP Act should be regulated by the Media Certification and Monito-ring Committee (MCMC) of the concerned state/district and anything in any form i.e. likely to be published after the campaign end should be regulated through the MCMC Committee by obtaining pre-certificate about submitting the script in advance so nothing adverse/negative should go in the public domain about any party.
