EC seeks BJP, Congress's reply for charges against Rahul Gandhi, PM Modi, Amit Shah

NEW DELHI: Acting on BJP and Congress 's allegations against each other, Election Commission Saturday exchanged the complaints and sought responses of the presidents of the two parties on the charges levelled against their functionaries.

Congress had complained against PM Modi and home minister Amit Shah for allegedly labelling the party as anti-SC/ST/OBC, and sought a ban on campaigning by the two for the remainder of the campaign period.

BJP on the other hand complained about Congress MP Rahul Gandhi 's remarks alleging that BJP was promoting RSS, letting Gujarat take away key investment projects from other states and also compromising the independence of constitutional and statutory bodies like EC, CBI, ED etc. It had sought a restraint on Rahul "handing out" such "lies" and demanded an FIR against Rahul and Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge in this regard.

On Saturday, EC, in separate letters to BJP president J P Nadda and Kharge, sought formal responses from both by 1 pm on Monday.