UP elections: BJP candidate charged for inflammatory speech

New Delhi, Jan 24: The BJP's Miranpur candidate for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls has been charged for allegedly giving an inflammatory speech at an election meeting and violating EC guidelines on physical campaigning, police said on Monday.

Pershant Gujjar and his 40 supporters have also been charged for holding the meeting without permission on Sunday, Kakroli Station House Officer (SHO) Sunil Sharma said.

He said that the meeting took place despite the Election Commission (EC) banning all kinds of physical poll public meetings and rallies in view of the Covid situation. Gujjar, in a video clip, is heard appealing to people in Chorawala village to support him in the elections as the BJP is of Hindus and the opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) is a Muslims' party.

Sharma said Gujjar and his supporters were charged after investigation of the video, which has gone viral on social media.

The election meeting, which Gujjar is addressing, was organised without the permission of district authorities and in violation of EC guidelines, he said.

Gujjar and his 40 supporters have been charged under Section 125 (promoting enmity between classes in connection with election) of the the Representation of the People Act, Section 3 of the Epidemic Diseases Act and Section 51 of the Disaster Management Act, Sharma said.

The SHO said that they also face Indian Penal Code sections 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and 269 and 270 which pertain to malignantly, unlawfully or negligently doing any act which is, and which he knows or has reason to believe to be, likely to spread the infection of any disease dangerous to life.

The other IPC sections imposed are 505(2) (whoever commits an offence in any place of worship or in any assembly engaged in the performance of religious worship) and 171 (offence related to not belonging to a certain class of public servants, wears any garb or carries any token resembling any garb or token used by that class of public servants), the Sharma said.

The Miranpur assembly constituency goes to polls on February 10 in the first of the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh elections.