Chandigarh: Chandigarh election staff has made it clear that the bulk messages being sent by the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre after the general elections have been announced is clear case of Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violation.
Since the matter has nationwide jurisdiction, the Chandigarh administration referred it to the Election Commission of India (ECI) for “necessary action”.
The matter relates to the circulation of bulk messages to millions of Indians onWhatsApp from ‘Viksit Bharat Sampark’, with a letter from Prime Minister Narendra Modi attached.
Largely highlighting his government’s achievements in past ten years, Modi in the letter stated that transformation in the lives of people was the biggest achievement of his government. He then sought people’s feedback.
A Chandigarh resident who received Modi’s letter a day after the poll announcement on March 17 filed a complaint through the ECI’s C-Vigil App, alleging it to be a misuse of official government machinery during the general election.
Talking to The Wire, Chandigarh returning officer-cum-deputy commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh said that since the matter was use of social media/a chat app, it was referred to Chandigarh’s District Media Certification & Monitoring Committee.
“Upon examining the matter, the committee found it prima-facie case of Model Code of Conduct violation,” Singh told The Wire.
He added since matter relates to the Government of India and Meta, and is not limited to just the Chandigarh jurisdiction, it has been referred to the ECI for taking necessary action. When asked what necessary action means, he said it is for the ECI to examine and decide.
Meanwhile, opposition party leaders including Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari had called on the ECI to ban these messages. Tharoor in his March 18 statement on X asked if the ECI will take note of such a blatant misuse of government machinery and government data to serve the partisan political interests of the ruling party.
Tharoor also shared screenshots of a UAE national who expressed his concern about a ‘data breach’ after receiving Modi’s letter on WhatsApp from the ‘Viksit Bharat Sampark’ account, with the registered office address of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India.
A few individuals from the UK and other countries also admitted to receiving the message on their WhatsApp account.
Receiving Modi’s message at his mobile, Tewari also tweeted on Monday that this unsolicited WhatsApp message is “a blatant violation of the both Model Code of Conduct & Right to Privacy”.
“Where did the ministry get my mobile number from? Which database are they unauthorisedly accessing,” Tewari asked.
As Srinivas Kodali has written for The Wire, “For the BJP, information of voters comes from multiple sources; it is an entire ecosystem consisting of the government machinery, data brokers and party workers on the ground. This information often interchanges hands, with party data going to the government and government data going to brokers. What we are witnessing now is the usage of hybrid machinery for political campaigning with multiple sources of information.”
