EC censures Abhijit Gangopadhyay for 24 hrs
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday, May 21 censured former Calcutta High Court judge and BJP candidate from Tamluk, Abhijit Gangopadhyay for violating its Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by making a “low-level personal attack” on Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The election body barred Gangopadhyay from campaigning for 24 hours, starting at 5 pm today and strictly warned him to be cautious in his public statements during the period the MCC is in force.
At a public meeting in Haldia on May 15, referring to the Sandeshkhali sexual abuse allegations, Gangopadhyay said (in Bengali), “Today, the Trinamool says everything is a lie. Rekha Patra (one of the protesters and BJP’s Basirhat Lok Sabha candidate) was bought for Rs 2,000. Mamata Banerjee, how much are you being sold for? One gives you Rs 8 lakh and gets a job, one gives you Rs 10 lakh and ration vanishes … Why is your rate Rs 10 lakh? Is it because you get your makeup done by Keya Seth (Kolkata-based beautician)? … How can a woman make such a comment about another woman (Patra), we can’t understand? Is Mamata Banerjee even a woman? I wonder sometimes.”
The ECI determined this statement as constituting a “low-level personal attack,” and therefore, violative of the MCC.
In its direction, the Commission described Gangopadhyay’s words “a direct affront on the ‘erosion of status of women in India’ ” and “abominable”. Since they come from someone of Abhijit Gangopadhyay’s educational and professional background’, the ECI said, his intention “does not remotely deserve any benefit of doubt”.
Acting on a Trinamool Congress complaint about Gangopadhyay’s remarks, the ECI issued a show-cause notice to him, demanding a response by 5 pm on Monday, May 20.
The Trinamool notice said the remarks violated Sections 354, 503, 504, 506 and 509 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and were in contravention of the EC’s MCC for being “repugnant to the honour and dignity of woman”, “low level personal attacks”, ”attack on personal life” and “malicious or offending decency and morality”.
The ECI’s show-cause notice described the remarks as “improper, injudicious, beyond dignity in every sense of the term, in bad taste” and therefore, prima facie violated the model code of conduct (MCC).
The BJP has fielded Gangopadhyay from the Tamluk parliamentary constituency in Purba Medinipur district in Bengal, where voting is scheduled for May 25.
