EC censures Konda Surekha’s comments on KTR as MCC violations

Hyderabad: The Election Commission on Friday strongly censured Congress minister Konda Surekha after it was shown that the minister violated MCC of elections by making unsubstantiated claims against Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), particularly its leader and former minister KT Rama Rao.

On April 6, the commission received a complaint from former MLC Karne Prabhakar and Dr Sravan Dasoju, official spokesperson of BRS. In the complaint, they alleged that Konda Surekha, during a press conference on April 1 made unverified and unsubstantiated allegations regarding the phone tapping case against BRS and KTR.

The commission then asked the Telangana chief electoral officer to submit a report on the issue. In the report, the Warangal district election officer stated that at a press meeting at the MLA camp office in Warangal, Konda Surekha said, “KCR garu, by indulging in tapping of phones, your son has blackmailed many persons like heroines and brought some of the officers to a situation of losing their jobs and facing imprisonment.”

The commission took cognisance of the speech and said that it goes against the general conduct of the Model Code of Conduct which states that ‘parties and candidates shall refrain from criticism of all aspects of private life, not connected with the public activities of the leaders or workers of other parties.’ The commission also stated that as per MCC, ‘the political parties and leaders shall not make false statements, utterances without factual basis aimed at misleading the voters.’

“You are not only a star campaigner for the Indian National Congress (INC) party in the ongoing general elections in Telangana but also a minister in the Government of Telangana. You bear an additional responsibility of choosing words carefully while making claims/allegations against a political party or a leader. Any unsubstantiated claim by you without any proof has the propensity to malign the image of the political party or candidate in opposition,” the commission said in its statement.