The police have also summoned BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya.
Bengaluru:
Cracking down on controversial messaging in the election season, the Karnataka Police has summoned BJP chief JP Nadda and IT cell head Amit Malviya over a post on X put by the party’s state unit.
A first information report (FIR) had been registered at the High Grounds Police station in Bengaluru in connection with the post and the two leaders were named in it. The investigating officer has issued the summons to them and they have been given a week to appear.
The controversial post contained a video showing the Congress favouring Muslims for reservation at the cost of the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes, an allegation that has been made by several top BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the past few days.
The Karnataka chief electoral officer had asked the state BJP to take down the post and, when that failed, the Election Commission sent a notice to X on Tuesday to remove it.
Stating that the post violated the legal framework, the Election Commission said in its notice to X, “An FIR has already been registered in the matter. It is further brought to your notice that Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka through Cyber Crime Division, Bengaluru has already directed X on 05.05.2024 to take down the objectionable post as per Section 79(3)(b) of Information Technology Act and rule 3(1)(d) of The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021. However, the post has not been taken down yet.”
Attempting to access the post now throws up a “page doesn’t exist” error message on the microblogging platform.
Source Agencies
