BENGALURU: The Election Commission of India on Tuesday wrote to social media platform X, urging it to remove one of the posts by BJP4Karnataka, that claimed that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah were allegedly giving funds to people from minority communities. The ECI said the post is violative of the extant legal framework.
A video posted on May 4 from the official handle of Karnataka BJP depicts caricatures of Rahul Gandhi and Siddaramaiah putting an egg with ‘Muslims’ written on it, into a nest that already has three eggs on which SC, ST and OBC are written. In the video, Rahul Gandhi feeds the ‘Muslims’ egg with funds, and after hatching, the birdie comes out and kicks out other birds that were hatched from other eggs.
Objecting to this, Congress had filed an FIR earlier, following which ECI officials directed X to take down the post immediately. “This is issued with the approval of the competent authority,” Anuj Chandak, Joint Director and Nodal Officer, ECI, mentioned in his letter to X. The letter also mentioned that an FIR has already been registered.
“It is further brought to your notice that the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, through Cyber Crime Division, Bengaluru, has already directed X on May 5 to take down the objectionable post as per section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act and Rule 3(1)(d) of The Information Technology (intermediary guidelines and digital media ethics code) Rules 2021. However, the post has not been taken down yet,” it stated.