Police action on EC orders on BJP seal issue shows intolerance towards criticism: Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said the EC direction to police to take action against alleged misleading news on social media about its letter carrying the seal of the BJP, shows "intolerance towards criticism" by the poll panel.

Vijayan said that the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) would be asked to intervene in the matter.

The CM said the seal of the BJP's Kerala unit appearing in an Election Commission (EC) document was "unbelievable" and cannot be seen as a lapse by a single official.


He said that what happened was wrong and Kerala Chief Electoral Officer Rathan U Kelkar informed that the issue was being investigated.

According to him, the details of the investigation and its findings should be made public. Such developments would be criticised.

"I am criticising it now. But directing police to take action is a move to block criticism. It shows intolerance towards criticism. Can the ECI behave like that? It has to remove itself from such decisions.

"Not allowing criticism is not right in a democratic system," Vijayan contended.

He further said that the police were no longer under his control and the action was taken on the direction of the ECI.

The poll panel had on Tuesday said that it has directed the police to take down misleading news about the issue from social media platforms.

The police had said that it has been observed that certain images and content, which were subsequently clarified by the Kerala Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) continued to be circulated across platforms in a misleading manner.

"These were being used as part of a misinformation campaign, with the potential to adversely impact the integrity of the electoral process and erode public trust," it said.

The controversy surfaced after CPI(M) flagged the issue on social media platform X, sharing an affidavit attached to a March 19, 2019 letter sent to political parties in the country that bore the BJP Kerala seal instead of the Election Commission's official seal.

The EC had said it was "purely a clerical error" and had been rectified immediately."

It had also said that the official responsible for the error has been placed under suspension.