PTI, NEW DELHI: The Congress today launched a scathing attack on the Election Commission, accusing it of acting like a "captive puppet" of the BJP and not taking action against Prime Minister Narendra Modi who held what it called a roadshow in Gujarat. In a no-holds-barred attack on Chief Election Commissioner A K Joti, the Congress alleged he was behaving like Modi's principal secretary and said the poll body had prostrated itself before the government.

Addressing a joint press conference here, Congress general secretary in charge of Gujarat Ashok Gehlot and communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala alleged that a "desperate prime minister facing defeat in Gujarat" held a roadshow with BJP flags and flouted the Constitution and the poll code of conduct. The EC was acting like a frontal organisation of the BJP and had abdicated its constitutional responsibility by not moving against Modi, they said.

It should be "ashamed" of itself for not maintaining neutrality in the ongoing polls, the Congress leaders added. "A desperate prime minister facing defeat in Gujarat holds a roadshow with BJP flags, flagrantly flouts the Constitution and the code of conduct. A puppet Election Commission looks on with complicity denigrating its role of an independent arbiter," they said.

The Election Commission had also denigrated the Constitution, Surjewala told reporters. "The Election Commission has become a captive puppet of Narendra Modi and the BJP. Unfortunately, the  Chief Election Commissioner has abdicated his Constitutional responsibility," he said.

He claimed that Modi, facing imminent defeat in the Assembly polls, had latched on to the "last straw", the EC, to violate the Constitution and code of conduct, "in complicity and cahoots" with the Election Commission of India. "A meek Election Commission is prostrating before the government and the prime minister, refusing to act till the conclusion of the voting and that is the entire game plan and the conspiracy," he said.