On May 24, BJP’s 3 “communal” and “controversial” Instagram posts were pulled down after an intervention by the state’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO). All posts were uploaded by the Chhattisgarh BJP’s official Instagram handle. All these posts were pulled down Friday after the Election Commission verbally reached out to the BJP, and also contacted Instagram’s parent company Meta.
The Chief Electoral Officer Reena Kangale said a “strong warning: has also been issued to the party against uploading such posts in the future.
What were in the posts of BJP and when uploaded?
This is not first incident when BJP’s social media Cell violated the MCC and crossed the limits of breaching communal harmony.
The first post was uploaded on May 15. In which an animated video allegedly showed a man wearing a cap and green clothes robbing a woman. When the woman asks for help, a caricature of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi takes the woman’s purse and gives it to the man. The video got 2,637 likes.
Second post uploaded on 20th May. This was a photo in which a caricature of Rahul Gandhi is snatching a mangalsutra from a woman and giving it to another man
The third post was posted on Chhattisgarh BJP’s Instagram on May 23, the animated video showed Rahul Gandhi holding a large egg labelled ‘Muslim’ and smaller eggs labelled ‘SC’, ‘ST’ and ‘OBC’. Then the child hatched from the ‘Muslim’ egg grows up and pushes others out of the nest. This post got 1,040 likes. The same video was also posted on May 7 from the Karnataka BJP account, and same pulled down by the Election Commission.
BJP claimed nothing controversial, Congress demanded legal action:
The BJP said there was nothing objectionable in the posts and that they were just targeting the Congress’s manifesto. “We did not receive any notice from the Election Commission, but we removed it as we are following the election guidelines. There was nothing religious about. The posts were related to the Congress narrative of inheritance tax and taking away reservation and giving it to Muslims,” Somesh Pandey, from the social media cell of the BJP in Chhattisgarh, said.
The Congress said legal action should be initiated against the BJP for the posts. Sushil Anand Shukla, in charge of the Congress’s communication cell in Chhattisgarh, said, “It is an extremely serious issue where BJP is conspiring to disrupt communal harmony of India and defame Congress party. They have made it a habit of violating the code of conduct and BJP’s social media handles have posted dozens of such posts. Their handle must be suspended. Just letting the BJP off with a warning is not enough. The Election Commission should take legal action against the BJP.” The Indian Express reported
Earlier, the Calcutta High Court has also slammed ECI for inaction against the derogatory advertisements published by the BJP and retrains BJP from publishing ads in any form of media till the completion of election. Sabrang India reported
Related:
Calcutta High Court slams ECI for inaction, restrains BJP from publishing ads in any form of media
Abhishek Manu Singhvi castigates ECI for opposing the plea to publicly disclose Form 17C data