While Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation on April 18 differed from a speech he made at a similar election-eve juncture in 2019, it was nonetheless problematic. In 2019, following a successful anti-satellite missile test, private news channels aired a speech by Mr. Modi extolling the mission and his government’s commitment to the country’s technological prowess even as the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) was in force ahead of the general election. Late last week, Mr. Modi’s transgression was greater as Doordarshan and Sansad TV broadcast his speech even as he accused the Congress, DMK, Trinamool Congress and Samajwadi Party of committing the “sin of foeticide” after they blocked the combined women’s reservation and delimitation Bills, and suggested that women voters would punish them electorally in the Tamil Nadu and West Bengal elections on April 23. Thus far, the Opposition in Parliament as well as numerous academics and activists have written to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) urging that the Election Commission of India (ECI) should sanction Mr. Modi for violating the MCC. In a familiar but also increasingly dispiriting turn, the ECI has yet to respond. It is expected to act reasonably quickly, as it has against Opposition parties.
Since the facts are not in dispute in this instance and the ECI’s reluctance to sanction the Prime Minister has become well-known, it is hard to believe that the delay is benign. The constitutional body allowed the Prime Minister’s monthly radio programme to continue broadcasting during the State polls in 2015 and 2017 and permitted NaMo TV to air in 2019 after prior approval of its contents. In 2024, the ECI issued a notice regarding a controversial speech by Mr. Modi in Rajasthan, but addressed it to the BJP president rather than to him. After the 2019 missile test, critics argued that the ECI’s refusal to sanction had created a loophole whereby major announcements could be framed as ‘official’, thus having an electoral impact while affording the ECI plausible deniability. As the letter to the CEC specified, Mr. Modi’s violation is clear if he delivered his address without the ECI’s prior approval. If the ECI did approve it, it must explain why it saw fit to grant the Prime Minister this precious privilege, investigate the speech’s contents, remove it from official platforms, and sanction Mr. Modi. The ECI’s inaction — rendered more pronounced by the two States voting on April 23 — only reinforces its partisan character, and undermines the fairness of polls as well as its own credibility.