The Election Commission on Wednesday asked the BJP and Congress to desist from campaigning along caste, community, language, and religious lines, asserting that India’ socio-cultural milieu cannot be made a casualty to elections.

Nearly a month after it issued notice to BJP president J P Nadda on opposition charge that Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a divisive speech in Rajasthan’s Banswara, the poll watchdog rejected his defence and asked him and his party’s star campaigners to desist from campaigning on religious and communal lines.