Chandigarh, May 7: MP Kiron Kher has claimed that when she used the word ‘Railgate’ in her post on social media, there was no direct or indirect reference to Pawan Kumar Bansal or any other individual.
She submitted a reply to a notice issued by the Election Commission. The commission had sought her explanation on a complaint filed by Pankaj Chandgothia, an advocate, on behalf of the city Congress.
In the complaint, Chandgothia sought cancellation of Kher’s nomination for levelling false charges without verification. He said Kher had used the word ‘Railgate’ in her Facebook and Twitter posts, which was a violation of the model code of conduct.
In her reply, Kher said the sentence objected to by the complainant does not make any reference as to who was responsible or involved or benefitted by the railway scam, commonly known as Railgate. The use of the word ‘Railgate’ in this particular sentence does not even remotely amount to criticism of any individual. Further, the complainant has not stated as to what allegation or distortion was made out against Bansal in the post. It seems the complainant has presumed the words ‘Railgate’ and ‘Pawan Bansal’ as synonyms, for reasons best known to him.
The contents of the said posts were well within the framework of Clause 2 of the poll code, she claimed.
“The post enlists ‘not being interested in a Railway scam’ as one of the reasons for my proposing Monorail instead of Metro for Chandigarh,” she said while asking the commission to withdraw the show-cause notice issued to her.
