The Election Commission yesterday released a statement asking X to take down the video. However, this was done with only 30 minutes left for polling to continue in the state.
New Delhi: The Karnataka Police has summoned Bharatiya Janata Party chief J.P. Nadda and the party’s ‘IT cell’ chief Amit Malviya over a post on the social media site X which was openly communal.
The Election Commission yesterday (May 7) released a statement asking X to take down the video. However, this was done with only 30 minutes left for polling to continue in the state. The video was up and shared multiple times for three days.
The Election Commission has notably not spoken of having taken any action against the BJP for the video, though some reports have it that the Karnataka chief electoral officer had initially asked the state BJP to take down the post, going to X only when BJP didn’t follow this direction.
The post is now no longer on X.
The animated video appears to depict Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah placing a large egg labelled ‘Muslims’ in a nest already containing smaller eggs labelled ‘SC’, ‘ST’ and ‘OBC’. Gandhi feeds the ‘Muslim’ hatchling and ignores the others.
The animation is in line with claims by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in multiple speeches, also ignored by the EC, that the Congress wants to take the wealth of Hindus, and those belonging to the SC, ST and OBC lists, and give them to Muslims.
NDTV reports that the Karnataka police’s action comes after a first information report was filed by the High Grounds Police station in Bengaluru. Nadda and Malviya were given a week to appear.
This story was originally published in thewire.in.
