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The speech was given on the following day after the Lower House of Parliament had rejected a constitution amendment bill to keep more Lok Sabha and assembly seats and provide 33 percent reservation for women in legislatures as mentioned in Nari Shakti Vandhan Adhiniyam. 

Citizens cited in the complaint filed with the chief election commissioner that the violation of the MCC was due to the use of the official government machinery and mass media by PM Modi to conduct election-related business in a partisan manner. 

CPI(M) General Secretary MA Baby described it as one of the gravest breaches of the MCC due to the abuse of the public broadcaster Doordarshan to broadcast a political address, and the EC ought to take necessary action.

The president of the Congress, Mallikarjun Kharge, has said that PM Modi had transformed what would have been an official address to the nation into a political speech, and that mudslinging was rife; then that it was too late in the day to change the Model Code of Conduct, so the action constituted a travesty of democracy. 

RJD MP Manoj Jha claimed the speech to be in reality an election speech made by Modi and had it included in the election expenses of the BJP, as it was an address made using government funds. 

This complaint insisted that in case the speech was actually given not with the prior consent of the ECI, it must be immediately dropped from all official files, government websites, and the rest of the media outlets, and appropriate corrective measures against it must be enforced.