Priyanka Gandhi gets notice from child rights body over ‘use of children for poll campaign’, has 3 days to reply

Congress general secretary and in-charge of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra received her first notice for her election campaign on Thursday for allegedly using children for an election rally.

Giving her three days time to reply to the notice, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, said that it had received a complaint and a video link in which children could be seen actively involved in election campaigning. “The children can be seen shouting slogans using derogatory remarks and using abusive language in your presence,” the notice said.

In its notice, the Commission asked Priyanka Gandhi to provide the names and addresses of the children, the place where the sloganeering had taken place and how the children had been brought to the site of the rally.

Earlier, a 12-second video of Priyanka Gandhi with a group of children had gone viral showing the children excitedly shouting slogans.

In the video, the children can be seen repeating the Congress’s election campaign slogan, “chowkidar chor hai”, for a bit. Priyanka Gandhi appears to encourage them. But then, the children switch to another slogan that uses an abusive word in Hindi. Priyanka Gandhi promptly cups her mouth in surprise.

In its notice the NCPCR cited the Election Commission’s guidelines and stated that the use of children constituted a violation of the model code of conduct.

As per the ECI’s rules, “all political parties must ensure that the children are not involved for election purposes such as distribution of posters/pamphlets, participate in slogan shouting, rallies, election meetings etc”.

“I stopped children from saying slogans which I think weren’t correct about PM. BJP edited the tape, removed the part where I was stopping them and they’re making this allegation, which is typical of them. What they do is twist truth,what I do is I speak the truth,” she was quoted as saying by ANI.