Terming the Election Commission of India (ECI) ‘biased and selective’, BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao questioned its ‘lenient’ approach towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, despite their “highly divisive remarks on religion”.
At a press conference here on Thursday, Mr. Rama Rao alleged that the ECI is “highly influenced” by the bigwigs in Central government and failed to act on the complaints against Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah. “More than 20,000 complaints have been lodged against both of them by various groups, political parties and citizens, but the ECI has just ignored them,” he said.
Mr. Rama Rao did not mince words accusing the ECI of being scared of Mr. Modi. On a specific complaint, the ECI preferred to serve a notice on BJP national president J.P. Nadda, rather than the PM, despite “highly provocative and incendiary statements”.
“BJP has been using religion and pictures of Lord Ram openly to seek votes apart from spewing venom against the minorities on its social media platforms, but the ECI simply chose to ignore all these,” he charged. “Hate speech and religious polarisation have become the norm in BJP campaigns.”
However, ECI banned BRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao from campaigning for criticising the Opposition in harsh tone and strong words. All that KCR did was vent out his anger against the Congress leaders who used abusive words against farmers and weavers.
Mr. Rama Rao said the BRS had lodged 27 complaints against poll code violations, including a few against Mr. Revanth Reddy but there was no action. The only action was a reprimand for Minister Konda Surekha. Why is Mr. Revanth Reddy spared? he asked.
The former Minister alleged that there was a collective effort of BJP and Congress to ban KCR from campaigning, fearing response from public during his bus yatra. BRS is bound to win 12 LS seats, he said. The BRS working president asked the ECI to be fair and prove their critics wrong by initiating action against Mr. Modi and seek explanation from him.
Condemns Krishank’s arrest
KTR condemned the arrest of BRS leader Krishank for his postings on Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy over the OU hostels closure issue. He said it was the CM who posted a morphed and fake circular while Mr. Krishank posted the genuine circular of OU Hostels’ chief warden. He said the arrest was nothing but intimidating the voices that raise questions.
