Navjot Sidhu urges EC to act against AAP over its campaign to ‘select’ CM candidate

Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday filed a complaint with the Election Commission (EC) against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) over its “Janta Chunegi Apna CM'' campaign.

Terming Kejriwal as a ‘master trickster and hypocrite’ who engineered propaganda to create fake news for deceiving the people of Punjab, Sidhu alleged that AAP’s campaign "Janta chunegi Apna CM" for ‘selection’ of its chief ministerial face through telephonic calls was fake, misleading, and mathematically unviable.

In his complaint to the EC, Sidhu said, "AAP is creating propaganda suggesting and projecting that they have chosen Bhagwant Mann as their chief ministerial face on the basis of a survey conducted by their political party through telephonic calls."

Prima facie, a total of 21,59,475 telephonic calls, voice messages, WhatsApp messages etc within a short time span of just four days being presented in this survey is not mathematically logical, the letter reads.

"It is possible that AAP has not attained any advertisement certificate prior to publication of the campaign titled 'Janta Chunegi Apni Sarkar' as MCMC (Media Certification and Monitoring Committees) does not issue any certificate to anyone prior to verification of all facts," Sidhu said.

Further, he requested the EC to verify whether AAP attained an MCMC certificate to advertise or not and if not, it amounts to contempt of court.

He stated that the commission should immediately direct the AAP to stop this campaign and issue a public retraction of all claims presented thereof.

It is also mandatory for every political party to provide details of approximate expenditure being spent on any campaign after commencement of Model Code of Conduct, the letter added.

"Election Commission is requested to register criminal cases against AAP through its national president Arvind Kejriwal under the relevant provisions of Indian Penal Code," Sidhu wrote in the letter.

Punjab is going to the polls on February 20 for 117 Assembly constituencies while the counting of votes will be held on March 1.