EC bars KCR from campaigning for 48 hours for making 'derogatory statements'

HYDERABAD: The Election Commission on Wednesday barred Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) President and former Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao from campaigning for 48 hours for making derogatory and objectionable statements against Congress.

While strongly condemning the BRS leader’s statements and reprimanding him for the misconduct, the poll panel barred him from holding any public meetings, processions, rallies, shows and interviews, or making public utterances in media in connection with the ongoing elections for 48 hours, beginning from 8 p.m. on Wednesday.

The EC order will affect the ongoing bus yatra of KCR, as Rao is popularly called, as part of his campaign for the May 13 elections to the 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana. The Commission took the action after the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Telangana, sent a factual report following a complaint by the state Congress unit's Senior Vice-President G. Niranjan that the BRS chief, at his press meet in Sircilla on April 5, made derogatory and objectionable statements against the Congress party.

The poll panel had issued a show-cause notice to KCR on April 16 for violation of certain provisions of the Model Code of Conduct and received a reply on April 23, where the BRS chief told the Commission that the officers in charge of election in Telangana and Sircilla are not Telugu people and they hardly understand the local dialect of Telugu.

He also argued that the complaint was made by the Congress by picking some sentences from his press conference out of context. The English translation of the sentences is not correct and twisted, he said.

After going through the contents of the complaint by Niranjan and KCR’s reply, the Commission found that KCR not only violated the provisions of the Model Code of Conduct by making the objectionable and derogatory utterances on April 5 at Sircilla but he had also been violating the MCC provisions during the past elections.