In response to a show cause notice by the Election Commission for the claim he made while addressing an election rally in Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh last month, Rahul Gandhi has said that he didn’t violate the poll code and claimed that his remarks are part of the current political rhetoric.

Rahul Gandhi had previously lied that the Modi government had included a provision in the Adivasi law which will empower the government to shoot down Tribals (Adivasis) without having to face any consequences.

Subsequently, the EC served him a show cause notice on May 1 highlighting a provision of the Model Code of Conduct that barred “unverified” allegations against political opponents.

In his 11 page reply to the EC, he had asked them to be ‘fair and non-discriminatory’ in dealing with complaints of poll code breach. He claimed that the Congress was being targeted unfairly and that the various poll violations of the BJP haven’t been acted upon.

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Rahul Gandhi has claimed that the comments on the tribal law were made in an attempt to summarise a proposed amendment to the Indian Forest Act in a simple language. Rahul Gandhi further claimed that he didn’t have any intention of “misleading, misrepresenting or stating false and non-existent facts”.

He said that his remarks were made in Hindi in a “free flow of a political speech”. He further said that his remarks are a part of the current political rhetoric confined to the BJP’s policies and asked for the complaint against him to be dismissed.

The Congress leader insisted that he didn’t violate the MCC as his remarks were limited to the policies and work of the Modi government. He further said that the BJP had filed the complaint in an attempt to distract him from his campaigning work as he is a party leader and a star campaigner.

Rahul Gandhi had previously threatened the EC with “consequences” in the future for being biased. He said that “anyone who colludes with the Modi government is committing a crime”.

This isn’t the first time that Rahul Gandhi had given the excuse of political speech for lying blatantly. The SC had sent a notice to him for attributing the ‘Chowkidar Chow Hai’ to the court. Following which he said that the remarks were made in the ‘heat of campaigning’. He was later forced to give an unconditional apology to the Supreme Court.