Kamal Nath approaches Supreme Court against Election Commission decision to revoke his star campaigner status

Congress chief and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath approached the Supreme Court on Saturday difficult an order of the Election Commission to revoke his “star campaigner” standing for violations of the mannequin code of conduct forward of bypolls to 28 meeting constituencies within the state.

“For repeated violation of the model code of conduct and for completely disregarding the advisory issued to him, the Commission revokes the status of leader of political party (star campaigner) of Kamal Nath,” EC mentioned in its order on Friday.

The fee has discovered Nath responsible of violating para 2 of Part 1 of General Conditions of Model Code of Conduct for Guidance of Political Parties and Candidates which states, “Parties and candidates shall refrain from criticism of all aspects of private life, not connected with the public activities of the leaders or workers of the parties.”

The ballot physique has taken observe of the Congress chief’s speech on October 13 through which he mentioned chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan handled the “mafia” and “milawatkhor” (adulterators) like gods.

On October 26, the fee warned Nath towards utilizing derogatory phrases, shortly after he referred to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Imarti Devi as an “item” throughout a rally.

According to Nath, no discover was issued to him on his October 13 speech. This was clearly a violation of rules of pure justice, his petition acknowledged. On his “item” remark, Nath mentioned he submitted his reply to EC that his comment was utterly misunderstood.

Based on his response, EC issued an advisory on October 26 asking him to chorus from such feedback in future.

In his petition to put aside the EC order, Nath mentioned, “It is clear that the order has been passed in complete violation of natural justice, without any application of mind, and is arbitrary and unreasoned.”

Nath’s lawyer Varun Chopra mentioned, “Between the date when EC issued advisory (October 26) and the order revoking star campaigner status (October 30) there is no fresh violation of MCC by Kamal Nath. Freedom of speech of a campaigner is a fundamental right which the Election Commission has abrogated at the fag end of the election campaign. We want the Court to lay down the principle whether the Commission was right to do so.”