The BJP filed a complaint to the election commission bringing to its notice some objectionable messages aired on Radio Mirchi on voting day in Meghalaya. Meghalaya voted to elect its legislative assembly today.
Complaint filed with #ElectionCommission against private FM channel by #BJP for allegedly airing objectionable advertisement. pic.twitter.com/y8eChslvHn
— All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) February 27, 2018
The complaint alleged that the advertisements on the Radio Channel asked people not to vote for BJP as it was an ‘anti- Christian Party’. The complaint further said that the advertisement was aired at 12:38 PM today. The complaint copy as shared on @airnewsalerts is below.
The complaint asked EC to punish the radio channel and the advertiser for trying to communalise the election on polling day. This is an illegal act as the Supreme Court in its order passed in January 2017 had said that asking for votes on the basis of caste, creed or religion was unacceptable under Representation of People’s Act.
This is not the first time Radio Mirchi has run into trouble with their motivated campaigns. In October last year, Radio Mirch had run an ad campaign titled “Mat Aao India” that represented India in a poor light urging foreigners to not travel to the country. They had aired this campaign after a Swiss couple was attacked in Agra. Aakash Bannerjee, the Vice President of Radio Mirch had shared the video addressing foreign tourists visiting India, urging them to not visit us. At first he reached out to Swiss Broadcasting Company and passive aggressively informed them about the attack that took place yesterday. After about 10-12 hours of posting it, he put another tweet in the same thread, addressing same organisation saying how India is not safe for tourists and they should not come.
The I&B ministry had then issued a show cause notice to Radio Mirchi for running the anti-India campaign.
Now that the Vineet Jain owned Radio station has run into trouble again, it remains to be seen if the radio channel and its advertiser will be brought to book as per law.
