NEW DELHI,apr 16:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to entertain a plea by Mayawati against EC ban for hate speech during poll campaign. On Monday, BSP supremo was barred from campaigning for 48 hours by the Elections Commission for violating Model Code of Conduct. Today, Mayawati’ counsel Dushyant Dave questioned the EC’s order to which the apex court asked him to challenge the EC order in a court of law. However, Dave cited paucity of time and said that the BSP leader is scheduled to address several rallies in this 48 hours and the SC order, based on which EC banned her from campaigning for 48 hours, has left her without remedy. He also alleged that the Election Commission’s order came without even hearing Mayawati’s defence. On Monday, cracking the whip, the Election Commission banned Mayawati, alongwith UP CM Yogi Adityanath, SP leader Azam Khan and Union minister Maneka Gandhi from campaigning for their hate crimes. While Adityanath and Khan were barred for 72 hours, Mayawati and Gandhi face a 48-hour ban. The nationwide ban comes into force at 6 am Tuesday, the poll panel said. According to EC officials, this is the first time an all-India ban has been imposed on politicians to campaign in elections and also it is for the first time such a restriction has been put against a chief minister.
While Adityanath, Mayawati and Gandhi were found guilty of violating the model code, EC said Khan, who also faced a state-specific ban during 2014 polls, not only violated the poll code, he also disregarded its directive asking politicians to desist from “deeds or actions construed as being repugnant to the honour and dignity of women”.
