The Congress on Wednesday formally complained to the Election Commission about JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav’s controversial personal comments against Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi and sought stern action against the Lok Sabha MP and former minister.
Holding Mr Yadav’s subsequent accidental description of Bihar chief minister and JD(U) stalwart Nitish Kumar as “faltu” (useless) in a public address on Tuesday against them, the Congress also asked Bihar’s ruling party to withdraw itself from the ongoing Assembly polls or change Mr Kumar as its chief ministerial candidate.
A delegation of Congress leaders led by AICC general secretary B.K. Hariprasad met Bihar’s chief electoral officer Sudhir Kumar Rakesh and submitted a memorandum describing the objectionable nature of Mr Yadav’s words at his Fatuha public meeting on Monday targeted purportedly at Mr Rahul Gandhi. A copy of the memorandum was also sent to CEC S.Y. Qureshi.
“Such comments are absolutely deplorable and show the general attitude of those who speak them. We have demanded stern action by the EC,” said Bihar Congress spokesman Premchand Mishra after the delegation, which also had AICC secretary Ranji Thomas, emerged out of the Bihar state election office.
However, there was no word in the Congress memorandum about certain controversial comments made against the Nehru family by Bihar’s BJP minister Giriraj Singh in defence of Mr Yadav’s original comments that Mr Gandhi “should be thrown into the Ganga”. Mr Singh had on Tuesday described Mr Gandhi as a “symbol of the sins of the Nehru family”.
The Congress urged the EC to prevent the JD(U) from pasting its campaign posters on the walls of government offices in Patna and elsewhere across the state.
“This is clearly a violation of the model code of conduct. We hope the EC would soon take action on this,” said Mr Mishra.
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CPI(M-L) leader passes away
age Correspondent
patna
Oct. 27: The death of Bihar’s veteran Communist leader Ram Naresh Ram of the CPI (M-L) made the state’s leading left party suspend its campaigns for the ongoing Assembly polls for a day in his honour on Wednesday.
For the past seven decades, Ram had been a pillar of Bihar’s Communist movements.
Rich tributes were paid to Ram by many leftist leaders and several others from other parties.