BJP approaches EC over Rahul's 'match fixing' jibe

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday approached the Election Commission of India (ECI) over Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s controversial ‘fixed match’ remark on Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the INDIA bloc’s rally.

At the INDIA bloc’s ‘Loktantra Bachao’ rally, Gandhi accused Modi of trying to do “match-fixing” in the Lok Sabha polls and asserted that if the BJP wins the election through this endeavour and changes the Constitution, then the whole country would be “finished.”

A BJP delegation, comprising Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and party’s national general secretary Arun Kumar, lodged the complaint against Gandhi with the poll panel.

Addressing the media after meeting Election Commission officials, Puri said the former Congress chief's comments during the public meeting were "extremely objectionable" as they are not just in violation of the model code of conduct but could have serious implications.

In another bold allegation, the Congress leader claimed that BJP’s ‘400 paar slogan’ is impossible without match-fixing, adding that the Prime Minister chose ‘umpires’ to go ‘400 paar’. “When pressure is put on umpires and captain, players are bought off and the match is won, in cricket, it is called match-fixing. We have Lok Sabha polls before us. Who selected the umpires? Before the match started, two players were arrested. Narendra Modi is trying to do match-fixing in these polls,” Gandhi said.

On the Income Tax Department freezing Congress’s accounts ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Gandhi said the Congress is the biggest Opposition party and all its accounts have been frozen at a time when the party has to run a campaign and send leaders to states.

“What kind of elections are these, governments are made to fall by using money power, leaders are threatened and arrested, Soren ji and Kejriwal ji are arrested,” Gandhi alleged. He said the entire country is watching this “match-fixing” in the election. It was Prime Minister Modi who appointed the Election Commission, put two chief ministers behind bars merely one or two months ahead of elections and “froze our bank accounts”, Gandhi said.