The Congress party filed a complaint with the ECI team in Vadodara about the BJP candidate breaking the Model Code of Conduct. The ECI team in Vadodara has yet to take any action. What's going on?

An application was presented by Rutvij Joshi, who serves as President of the Vadodara Congress unit, to the returning officer of the Vadodara Lok Sabha. In order to address the issue of violating the Model Code of Conduct and taking legal action, He questioned the educational qualification of the BJP candidate in the Vadodara Lok Sabha constituency.

According to deshgujarat.com as on 04th May 2024 (Who is Dr. Hemang Joshi, BJP candidate for Vadodara Lok Sabha seat | DeshGujarat); Joshi is a graduate in physiotherapy and post graduate in human resource management. He has obtained a PhD in leadership from the Faculty of Social Work. The www.news9live.com website emphasized that BJP candidate qualifications include a degree in physiotherapy and a post-graduate degree in human resources management. Additionally, he holds a PhD from the department of social work.

The ruling party candidate from Vadodara Lok Sabha in his affidavit available on election commission of India website (i.e., Election Commission of India (eci.gov.in)) stated that he did a Bachelor of Physiotherapy and Master of human resource management from M. S. University of Baroda.  The ruling party needs to clarify to the citizen of the Vadodara what is a education of the candidate. The ruling party require to have a process in place to check and validate that whatever the information provided by the candidate in the nomination form and affidavit are correct and no part of it is false and nothing material has been concealed therefrom.

In the affidavit submitted by the ruling party candidate not even a single place highlighted that he is a doctor while the communication provided by the ECI team of Vadodara clearly highlighted that the ruling party candidate name as Dr. Hemang Joshi and the banner posted by the ruling party in Vadodara city also clearly stated that the candidate’s name as Dr. Hemang Joshi.   

According to Indian Medical Association (Indian Medical Association (ima-india.org)) PHYSIOTHERAPISTS CANNOT USE THE PREFIX “Dr”. The education background highlighted in the affidavit and information available in multiple news website are different and it is difficult to conclude who is right and who is wrong. A big question is any one file a nomination for any election in India, who will check the basic details of the candidate? The response from the returning officer at the time of scrutiny of the nomination forms that they need to check all fields are filled or not the correctness of the information is not required to check. Why are all candidates not provided prefix as Dr in Lok Sabha election of 2024 in Vadodara? Is it not a misrepresentation of the information to voters of Vadodara Lok Sabha?

The application submitted to the returning officer of the Vadodara Lok Sabha on 3rd May 2024, but no media channel punished it. Is it a good media management by the ruling party ? The media is considered as the fourth pillar of democracy, and it plays a vital role in a country’s social, political, economical and international affairs while local media is not publishing a story having direct impact on Lok Sabha election of 2024 in Vadodara Lok Sabha. Big media houses are biased and act like a presstitute and the fourth pillar of democracy is broken into multiple parts due to financial corruption. Who will save the democracy is a big question for the citizens.