Police in India have opened a case against senior leaders of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over a social media post that opposition leaders say “demonises Muslims”.
By By Meryl Sebastian
The animated video depicts senior Congress party leaders granting benefits to Muslims at the expense of marginalised castes and tribespeople.
Hours after the police case opened, the Election Commission asked X (formerly Twitter) to remove the video.
It said the post violated Indian law.
There was no immediate response from X or the BJP.
In its order, the Election Commission says its chief electoral officer in Karnataka (the video was posted by the BJP’s Karnataka state unit) had “already directed” X to take down the post on Sunday, but that this hadn’t been done yet. Voting in Karnataka was held on Tuesday and ended in the early evening local time.
This is the second such video the BJP has posted online in the past two weeks. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also made similar claims about the opposition favouring the Muslim minority over other social groups at election rallies.
India is several weeks into a general election that ends in June, and according to the model code of conduct, parties and leaders are barred from using religious issues to seek votes.
But opposition leaders and political commentators say PM Modi, who’s seeking a rare third term in a row, and other leaders from his Hindu nationalist party are resorting to blatant Islamophobia. They have also criticised the Election Commission (EC) for not taking timely action against them.
India’s 200 million Muslims are the largest minority group in the country. Anti-Muslim hate speech has surged in the country since the BJP came to power in 2014.
This story was originally published in bbc.com. Read the full story here.