West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on May 29 said that the Indian National Congress party would lodge a complaint with the Election Commission if Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meditation in Kanyakumari is broadcast on television, alleging that it is a violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC).
According to a senior BJP leader, PM Modi will meditate at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, a monument built in honour of Swami Vivekananda, in Kanyakumari after the climax of the Lok Sabha election campaign on May 30.
“We will file a complaint. He can meditate but TV cannot broadcast it,” she said, alleging this is a “violation of MCC”.
“Do you need a camera to meditate?” she asked, arguing that this is a way of campaigning during the quiet period between the end of the campaign and voting day.
According to a senior BJP leader, PM Modi will meditate from the evening of May 30 to the evening of June 1 at the Dhyana Mandapam, the spot where Vivekananda, a spiritual icon revered by the PM, is believed to have had a divine vision of “Bharat Mata”.
Addressing an election rally at the same venue where PM Modi addressed a rally in support of the BJP candidate from Jadavpur constituency on Tuesday, the Trinamool Congress leader asserted that he goes into meditation for 48 hours before the final voting is held in any election.
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The Prime Minister had undertaken a similar meditation in the Kedarnath caves after the 2019 election campaign.
Banerjee accused the BJP government at the Centre of selling shares in state-owned companies.
“If they (BJP) return to power this time, there will be no political parties, no elections, no independence, no religion, no humanity and no culture,” she said.
The TMC supremo tried to deny Modi’s statement that the BJP would perform best in the upcoming Bengal elections, saying, “This means they have lost and they Rosogolla She said the TMC would “support” the Opposition Indian Alliance to form the government in Delhi and urged people not to vote for the CPI(M) or the Indian National Congress in Bengal.
“It will help the BJP,” she said at an election rally in Baruipur ahead of the seventh round of elections for nine Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, which has a total of 42 seats.
“If I had not left the Indian National Congress and formed the Trinamool Congress, we would not have been able to defeat the Communist Party of India (CPI(M)) in Bengal even today,” she said.
She said she had been fighting with the CPI(M) for 34 years to oust the CPI(M) government from Bengal, and added, “If we have achieved that, we can also defeat the BJP and we will do so.”
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