Kerala Congress shared on its ‘X’ deal with a duplicate of a 2019, ECI letter bearing the BJP seal. Picture: X/@INCKerala
The presence of a seal of the Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP) Kerala unit on a 2019 Election Fee of India (EC) letter on poll-related pointers, which was distributed to political events just lately, sparked a row within the State on Monday, the ultimate day for submitting nominations for the April 9 Meeting polls within the State.
Whereas the Communist Get together of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] alleged that “seals are being casually swapped” and questioned whether or not “all pretences” have been dropped by the BJP, Chief Electoral Officer (Kerala) (CEO) Rathan U. Kelkar attributed the difficulty to a “clerical error” and added that corrective measures had been taken.
The CPI(M) had shared on its ‘X’ deal with a duplicate of a March 19, 2019, EC letter bearing the BJP seal. The letter, to CEOs of all States and Union Territories forward of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, handled the EC pointers on the publicity of prison antecedents by political events and candidates. Copies of the letter had been issued afresh to political events by mistake, in line with the CEO’s workplace.
Clerical error, says CEO
The CEO issued a clarification attributing the episode to a clerical error and asking everybody to keep away from spreading the “unsuitable message.”
“The BJP Kerala Unit had just lately approached the CEO’s workplace searching for clarification on the 2019 pointers concerning the publication of prison antecedents of candidates. Together with their request, the celebration submitted a photocopy of the unique 2019 directive. The celebration’s seal was current on that particular copy offered by them. Resulting from an oversight, the workplace failed to note the celebration image on the submitted doc and inadvertently redistributed it to different political events as a part of the requested clarification. The rules in query have undergone revisions since 2019, which have already been communicated to all political entities. The Workplace of the Chief Electoral Officer acknowledged the lapse as quickly because it was detected,” the CEO clarified.
Additional to the clarification issued within the matter, an Assistant Part Officer within the workplace of the Chief Electoral Officer has been positioned beneath suspension pending enquiry on this connection.
Revealed – March 23, 2026 07:03 pm IST
