General elections 2014: Manohar Parikkar condemns EC move against Amit Shah

BANGALORE: Goa Chief Minister, Manohar Parikkar, criticised the Election Commission for banning BJP leader Amit Shah from election meetings and rallies in Uttar Pradesh and said it had used two different yardsticks for Shah and Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah while acting on their comments at election rallies.

Two days ago, the Commission had admonished Siddaramaiah for calling BJP Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, a “mass murderer.”

“I don’t agree with the Election Commission judgment. It is a poor reading of his full speech. The word revenge here does not mean anything. You have to read the word revenge in the context of the speech he is making,” Parikkar, a member of BJP’s national central election campaign committee, told ET referring to Shah’s speech.

“The Election Commission has the power to conduct free and fair polls but within the parameters of the Constitution. In Amit Shah’s case, it has overstepped its powers, and curtailed his freedom of speech guaranteed under the Article 19 of the Constitution,” he said. “Why two different laws for Siddaramaiah and Amit Shah,” Parikkar said.

About former Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani contesting in Bangalore, the Goa Chief Minister said Nilekani was his batch-mate at IIT, Bombay. “All that I would say is he is in a wrong party at a wrong time.”