A cropped video of a journalist asking a question to Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar about cases of alleged violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah is being shared with a false claim that he dodged the question.
The Election Commission held a press conference on March 16, 2024, announcing the schedule for the general elections in the country. CEC Kumar took questions from several reporters present at the press conference after announcing the schedule.
The 39 seconds video shows Ashlin Mathew from National Herald can be heard asking, "You had said in your speech, there should be no hate speech, there will be a calibrated approach to MCC code violations, but there have been several complaints against the Prime Minister and Amit Shah, but the EC has not taken action against them, but you have taken action against the opposition. So if there is a calibrated approach wont it be the opposition leader that will be picked up more, who'll get notice from you more than the ruling party leaders?". After this one can hear a person asking for the mike to passed on to another journalist.
The video was posted on Facebook by Congress leader Digvijaya Singh with the caption, "Journalist with a Spine..Coward ECI just skipped her question.."
Click here to view
The same video was previously posted on X by the handle Spirit of Congress (@SpiritOfCongress) with the same caption.
Click here to view, and here for an archive
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral video has been cropped and in the original live stream of the Election Commission's press conference, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar took questions from several journalists and answered them together along with the question that was raised by the National Herald reporter.
On watching the press conference which was live streamed on March 16, 2024, at the 58.26 minutes timestamp, one can hear the speaker announcing that CEC Kumar would be taking 4-5 questions together.
After this reporters are seen asking their questions one by one while passing the mic. This part has been cropped out of the viral video where a series of questions were being asked one after the other.
CEC Kumar can be heard responding to National Herald reporter Ashlin Mathew's question from the 1.10.22 minutes to 1.11.30 minutes timestamp in the video below.
Replying to the question in Hindi, CEC Kumar said, "you are trying to ask if we biasedly act against some, you aren't asking but putting an allegation which I should answer you, you have a right to ask. If you see the last 8-11 elections, any complaints that have come to us, you read them, after reading the notices, in them if anywhere a violation has been established, in the notices too its not like we have taken action in all of them, as I said they are kind of a moral sensor which we have in the beginning issued, and if against anyone there is a case, however high star campaigner he or she maybe, we will take action."