New Delhi: With only weeks to go for assembly elections in five states, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress knocked on the Election Commission (EC)’s door on Wednesday, October 25, alleging poll code violations by each other.On Wednesday afternoon, a BJP delegation including Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and Arjun Ram Meghwal, MP Radha Mohan Das Agarwal, and party leaders Anil Baluni and Om Pathak went to the EC office in New Delhi and submitted a memorandum demanding legal action against Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.The memorandum says that Gandhi Vadra at a public rally in Dausa, Rajasthan on October 20 said that she saw on television that an envelope carrying a donation made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Devnarayan Temple contained Rs 21. She said that she saw it on television and could not say whether it was true or not.She compared the alleged donation to other developments in the country, claiming that while several declarations are made on stage during elections, all such promises are later found to be jumlas.“This statement of Smt. Priyanka Gandhi has violated the very basic foundation of free & fair elections by invoking the personal religious devotion of the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi,” the BJP memorandum said.The memorandum said that with her speech, Gandhi Vadra had violated the Indian Penal Code and the Representation of People Act.It added that Modi had visited the temple in Bhilwara in January, more than eight months before the declaration of elections.“The quantum of his offerings are not a matter of public debate or has nothing to do with the elections. To mock an individual for his devotion and faith on any basis whatsoever amounts to public abuse, denigration and vilification of the individual, the religion and its followers,” it said.Seven Congress complaintsA couple of hours later, a delegation of the Congress reached the EC office in the national capital and submitted a memorandum with seven charges against BJP leaders.The delegation included MPs Jairam Ramesh, Revanth Reddy, Uttam Kumar Reddy, former union minister Salman Khurshid, and leaders Manikrao Thakre, and Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka.A complaint was against Union home minister Amit Shah’s election speech in Chhattisgarh’s Rajnandgaon on October 16, in which he accused the Congress government of orchestrating the killing of Bhuneshwar Sahu, who was killed in communal violence in Biranpur village in April. Sahu’s father Ishwar has been fielded as a candidate by the BJP.The party has also demanded action against Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for his speech in Chhattisgarh on October 18 for “clear cut intention to incite sections of society against one another.”It has also lodged a complaint against the Union government’s orders directing civil servants and Indian Army soldiers to promote the achievements of the BJP government.The party has also sought the disqualification of Govind Singh Rajput, the BJP candidate from Surkhi in Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh. He allegedly claimed that he would pay Rs 25 lakhs to booth prabharis where more votes would be cast for the BJP.It also sought the disbursement of benefits under schemes introduced by the Telangana State Government before the date of filing nominations (November 3) or after the polling of votes (November 30). The memorandum also included a complaint against unlawful transfers and posting of police officers in Telangana, who have been transferred without completing two and half years of their tenure, as mandated by the EC, along with a complaint against allotment of election duty to specific officers in the state “who publicly support a specific political party.”EC as ‘Impartial Referee’The Election Commission’s role as a referee has been under intense scrutiny, particularly since the 2019 general elections, when shortly after the polls, an election commissioner, Ashok Lavasa, who was next in line to be the chief election commissioner, left the EC and joined the Asian Development Bank in Manila in an unprecedented move. Incidentally, Lavasa was revealed to be the only person in the three-member commission who had voted against issuing clean chits to Amit Shah and Prime Minister Modi for speeches that were contentious and which the opposition had complained against.The Modi government, in the monsoon session in parliament, introduced a Bill that removes the chief justice of India from the panel [also consisting of the prime minister and the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha] to select election commissioners. By doing so, the government seeks to overturn a five-judge constitutional bench judgment delivered in March 2023 that reduced the power of the executive.Elections to Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Mizoram will be held over the next month, between November 7 and November 30, and the results will be announced on December 3.