New Delhi: Union minister of state for finance Anurag Thakur and BJP’s West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma were banned by the Election Commission from campaigning in the Delhi Assembly polls for 72 hours and 96 hours respectively for making controversial speeches. The ban came into force from 5 pm on Thursday.
It has also granted permission to the Union home ministry to extend by one month the services of Delhi police commissioner Amulya Patnaik, who was due to retire on Friday.
The EC said the BJP leaders had made undesirable and objectionable statements which had the potential to aggravate existing differences. The EC orders barred Mr Thakur and Mr Verma from holding any public meetings, processions, rallies, roadshows and interviews, public utterances in the media in connection with the ongoing Delhi polls.
At a recent public meeting in Rithala, Mr Thakur had shouted “desh ke gaddaron ko”, to which the crowd responded “goli maaro saalo ko (sic)” (shoot down the traitors). Mr Verma had claimed that those who mounted over a month-long sit-in protest at Shaheen Bagh against the controversial citizenship law “will enter your houses, rape your sisters and daughters”. In his defence to the showcause notice, Mr Thakur told the EC he had only said “desh ke gaddaron ko” (traitors to the country), and it was the crowd which responded.
