Faced with the ruling against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, BJP expressed surprise over the Election Commission's ‘differentiating’ verdict against Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on her ‘merchant of death’ remark."It is really surprising that while giving the ruling, the EC has cautioned both Modi and (Congress general secretary) Digvijay Singh but just expressed displeasure in the case of Sonia Gandhi," BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said.Maintaining that the poll body had ‘not given the same kind of caution’ to Gandhi, he said after a preliminary reading of the ruling, we do not see any qualitative difference in the objections raised by the EC in the speeches of all the three which is surprising.The Election Commission had expressed displeasure over the controversial election speeches of Modi and Gandhi.Javadekar said BJP was ‘at loss’ to understand the basis for the Commission's ‘differentiated’ ruling."Why the same caution was not given to Sonia Gandhi. We expected a similar ruling," he said, adding ‘justice should be similar for everyone’.In its communication to Modi and Gandhi on Saturday, the Election Commission said that they had violated the model code of conduct with their speeches during the Gujarat Assembly polls.While Modi was hauled up for his controversial remarks on the fake encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, the Congress president's ‘merchant of death’ statement drew the poll body's ire.
