The Election Commission on Sunday said that a campaign video released by the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the Jharkhand Assembly polls violated the Model Code of Conduct and directed “immediate action as per existing laws and procedures”, The Indian Express reported.
The Model Code of Conduct is a set of guidelines issued by the Election Commission for political parties, candidates and governments to follow during an election. It sets guardrails for speeches, meetings, processions, election manifestos and other aspects of the polls.
The poll body’s action came after the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the Congress, both allies in the state, filed a complaint. The parties said the video propagated a “false narrative” about a religious community.
The video, posted on the Jharkhand BJP’s social media handles on Saturday night, showed a large group, appearing to be members of the Muslim community, entering the house of a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha supporter, PTI reported.
“Look carefully at how big a mistake a wrong vote can become,” the text along with the video read, according to the news agency. “So don’t make the same mistake this time as in 2019. Choose the right thing, choose BJP.”
On Sunday, the poll body asked Jharkhand Chief Electoral Officer K Ravi Kumar to direct social media platforms to “take down the referred post immediately”. Kumar was also directed to seek an explanation from the BJP’s Jharkhand unit.
The police also registered a first information report on the directions of the Election Commission, Kumar told The Indian Express.
The party subsequently deleted the video.
Also read: How the BJP is trying to exploit Adivasis’ anxieties in Jharkhand for electoral gain
Polling for the second phase of the Jharkhand Assembly elections will be held on November 20. The first phase was conducted on November 13. The counting of votes will take place on November 23, alongside that of the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
Soon after the video was posted on Saturday, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha had flagged it on the social media platform X and tagged the Election Commission.
“How far will you allow the country to fall in the name of Hindus and Muslims?” the party said. “Now have some shame and wake up? Show me some courage. Today BJP has crossed all limits of shamelessness and vulgarity.”
The party also filed a complaint with Kumar against the video, The Indian Express reported.
The Congress, on its part, submitted a memorandum to the poll body in Delhi seeking orders to delete the video and the registration of a first information report.
“The content of the video uploaded by the BJP directly invokes religious identity as a call/appeal for votes; in complete violation of the provisions of the Model Code of Conduct and the Representation of the People Act, 1951,” Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said in the memorandum.
The Congress sought a deletion of “all communal, divisive and malicious videos” from the BJP’s social media accounts.
It urged the Election Commission to take strict action against the BJP “to ensure that a political party, despite their status, is not emboldened to carry out election campaigns de hors [outside the scope of] electoral norms of conduct and electoral laws”.
In response to the complaints, the BJP said that the video “merely reflected the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the Congress’ mindset”, according to The Indian Express.
“On June 2, 2023, the Special Branch of the Jharkhand Police issued a letter to all District Commissioners, cautioning against Bangladeshi infiltrators entering Jharkhand through madrasas,” BJP spokesperson Ajay Shah said.
“However, one year later, the Hemant government outrightly denied any such infiltration,” he added.
“These incidents, along with a statement from the Congress state in-charge openly promising free cylinders to infiltrators and the Congress’s pledge to promote madrasas, suggest that the JMM-INC [Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the Congress] alliance has been actively working to settle Bangladeshi infiltrators to expand their vote bank for political gain,” Shah said.
In the run-up to the polls, several BJP leaders have alleged that “Bangladeshi infiltrators” were marrying Adivasi women to grab their land and property, and to use them as proxies to gain power in the region.
A Scroll investigation has found such claims to be false.
In its manifesto, the BJP also pledged to return land allegedly occupied by “infiltrators” to the state’s Adivasis. The document added that the children of “infiltrators” who marry Adivasis would not be recognised as Adivasis.
Asha Lakra, a BJP politician and member of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, had also claimed that ten Adivasi women elected representatives in nine panchayats in Sahibganj were married to “Bangladeshi infiltrators, Rohingya Muslims”.
Scroll has found that four of the 10 cases Lakra cited were false. Three of the women had Adivasi husbands. The fourth, Kapra Tudu, had married outside the Adivasi community, but her husband, Nitin Saha, is Hindu, not Muslim.
In six cases, where Adivasi women panchayat leaders were indeed married to Muslims, all of them told Scroll they had married out of choice. “The Indian constitution gives us the freedom to marry whom we please,” one said.
The Union government in September acknowledged before the High Court that the share of Adivasis in the region’s population had decreased, but did not attribute this to “infiltration” from Bangladesh. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is in power at the Centre.
Also read: BJP claims Muslims are marrying Adivasi women to grab land in Jharkhand. The claims don’t add up