The front-runner to be India's next prime minister could wind up in jail for two years after he snapped a selfie and held a press conference outside a polling station on Wednesday.
Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate for the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, took a selfie outside a voting center in the state of Gujarat while holding a paper lotus, the symbol of his party. He then held a press conference that various Indian officials said was too close to the polling station to be legal.
Indian law prevents anyone running for election there from campaigning within 100 meters of a voting center. The Election Commission of India alleges that Modi was well within that distance, and that he was attempting to influence [PDF] voters by showing off his party's symbol and talking to the press.
In a statement on its website, the commission says that they reviewed the video [PDF] of Modi's comments to the press and determined he intended to influence people going to the polls.
"The commission is of the view that by holding that meeting...when the polling is going on in the entire state of Gujarat and in different parts of the country, Narendra Modi has violated the provisions of Sections 126 (1) (a) and 126 (1) (b) of R.P. Act 1951," the statement [PDF] said.
Those provisions prevent any candidates from speaking to constituents in any way for two days prior to the hour that polls close, and breaking that law is punishable by as many as two years in prison [PDF].
Congress, the party that currently controls India's parliament, also filed a complaint to the commission, and so did the upstart Aam Aadmi Party. The election commission has asked Gujarat's director general of police and the state's chief secretary to look into the matter.
Modi responded with indignation, especially toward the Congress party, according to New Delhi Television Limited, an Indian broadcasting network.
"To date in my entire life, not even a single [first information report] was registered against me, not even for wrong-side scooter driving, and not even for wrong parking," Modi said, according to NDTV.
He scoffed at the charge, saying that people usually have reports filed agains them for threatening someone with a weapon and all he did was brandish a fake lotus. Modi also said his political rivals were just upset that they were being challenged by "a person who [once] eked out his livelihood by selling tea."
Source : http://mashable.com/2014/04/30/india-candidate-violation/
No comments:
Post a Comment