Election Commission notice to BJP MLA for putting posters featuring IAF officer Varthaman
New Delhi: The EC has issued a show-cause notice to Delhi BJP MLA Om Prakash Sharma for putting up two posters featuring him, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman on Facebook.
The Election Commission (EC) has asked him to take down the post and give a reply by Thursday.
The Lok Sabha election is scheduled to begin on April 11 and will continue till May 19. Polling in Delhi will be held on May 12.
The posters, shared on social media on March 1, feature Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah, the IAF officer, and Sharma, who represents the Vishwas Nagar seat in the Delhi Assembly.
"Pakistan has bowed down. Our brave soldier has returned. It's a big diplomatic victory that Modiji has brought Abhinandan back in very little time," the posters read.
District Magistrate, Shahdara, K M Mahesh, told PTI, "We issued a show-cause notice to Sharma on March 11 for posting posters featuring Abhinandan Varthaman on Facebook."
"He (Sharma) has been asked to furnish a reply by 11 am Thursday. It's a violation of the Model Code of Conduct and appropriate action will be taken," Mahesh, who is also the district election officer, said.
Referring to its December 2013 letter to all political parties, the poll panel had recently asked them to refrain from making references to the armed forces while canvassing for elections.
The directive had come against the backdrop of a picture showing a hoarding with images of Varthaman and leaders of a party.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
