NEW DELHI — India's election commission has lifted a ban on a top aide of Hindu nationalist opposition leader Narendra Modi that had threatened to hobble his efforts to win votes in the country's most populous state. Amit Shah, Modi's campaign manager in the battleground state of Uttar Pradesh, was banned from election rallies and meetings this month after making speeches deemed to have stirred tensions with minority Muslims. The commission stated that it was lifting the ban partly because Shah had lodged an appeal in which he vowed not to use “abusive or derogatory language” and that it would monitor his campaigning using video tracking. The election commission this month also banned Azam Khan, a senior member of the Samajwadi Party, a state party that governs Uttar Pradesh, for speeches that stirred “disharmony between different religious communities.” – Reuters
