EC bars Abhijit Ganguly from campaigning for 24 hours

Kolkata: Following BJP’s Tamluk seat candidate Abhijit Gangopadhyay’s “improper, injudicious and undignified” remarks against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the Election Commission (EC) is learnt to have put a 24-hour ban on his campaign.

The ban will be in effect from 5 pm on Tuesday till 5 pm on Wednesday. The decision from the poll panel also came a day after Gangopadhyay sent his reply to the show-cause notice issued by the EC for his remarks. The poll body felt that his “improper, injudicious and undignified” remarks were prima facie a violation of the MCC.

The Commission has warned Gangopadhyay to be careful in his public utterances. The EC’s letter to Gangopadhyay read: “…the Commission has carefully gone through the contents and averments made in the aforesaid reply of Shri Abhijit Gangopadhyay and has again gone through the statement made and is convinced that he has made a low-level personal attack and thus violated the provisions of Model Code of Conduct.”

The EC acted against the former Calcutta High Court judge and BJP nominee based on a complaint filed by Trinamool.

Meanwhile, hours after the EC debarred him, Gangopadhyay said he has written to the ECI, urging the poll panel to reconsider the decision. “I have written to the EC to reconsider its decision. If the order is not reconsidered, I will move the court at a suitable time to

quash the order,” he told a vernacular news channel.