The Congress has said its candidate for Delhi’s Rithala Assembly seat, Sushant Mishra, was attacked by an Election Commission-appointed official on Saturday evening—an allegation rejected by the district magistrate, who is also the district election officer.
AICC member Ajay Upadhyay told reporters, “We were holding a rally in the constituency when a man, who did not show us his identity card, tried to stop the rally and asked those gathered to disperse. When Sushant Mishra asked him who he was and why he was trying to stop the rally, he said he was from the EC and started to threaten him. After that, Mishra was pushed and hit on the lip by a mic. We want to ask the EC why our candidate is being harassed… We have been raising an issue about our election campaign material being removed… The AAP’s and BJP’s flags are being put up across the city; why are ours being removed?”
A statement from the office of the district magistrate, however, said that a flying surveillance team (FST) had reached the area after receiving a complaint around 5 pm on Saturday.
“At the same time, campaigning of the INC (Indian National Congress) party was also going on at Budh Vihar Phase-2. The FST head requested the organisers to display the copy of permission. The campaigners of the party were unable to display a copy of the permission. The FST head and his team, therefore, requested the organisers to disperse as they had no permission for campaigning, and the expenditure team was also requested to record the expenditure. The organisers discussed amongst themselves for some time and dispersed,” the statement read.
The statement added that the team was doing its duty as per procedure and that the allegations of “misbehaviour/disagreement by FST team members with campaigners are not found correct and thus denied in toto”.