New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena Thursday afternoon to campaign for the BJP, ripped into the Congress on the inheritance tax row, and restated controversial remarks about Muslims and the opposition party’s alleged plans to “redistribute wealth to infiltrators”.
The remarks came hours before a significant first by the Election Commission in Delhi; the poll panel issued notices to BJP boss JP Nadda and his Congress counterpart, Mallikarjun Kharge, on complaints by each other accusing Mr Modi and Rahul Gandhi of hate speech and Model Code violations.
The EC’s show-cause notice did not mention either the PM or Mr Gandhi, or even Mr Kharge, in the context of the alleged hate speeches. It did, however, attach copies of the complaint in its notices and, for the first time, held party bosses responsible for their star campaigners’ speeches.
Essentially, the EC said it required Mr Nadda and Mr Kharge to ensure BJP and Congress star campaigners must follow its guidelines on “a higher quality of discourse”.
Speaking in Morena, the PM alleged the Congress wanted to re-impose the inheritance tax abolished by Rajiv Gandhi. Mr Modi said the former Prime Minister did so to save the majority of the wealth of his mother, ex-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, from going to the government. “After benefitting from it… the Congress now wants to impose it on the people of the country”, he claimed.
