The Election Commission on Saturday reduced the campaign ban it had imposed on Assam BJP minister Himanta Biswa Sarma over his personal allegations against Opposition politician Hagrama Mohilary. A similar punishment awarded to DMK leader A. Raja stood.

The poll panel had on Friday handed Sarma a 48-hour ban, effectively gagging him till campaigning ended in Assam on Sunday before the last phase of polling on Tuesday. On Saturday, the commission cut the ban to 24 hours in a rare show of mercy, which means Sarma can campaign on Sunday.

The commission wrote to Sarma that it was reducing its punishment considering his “unconditional apology and assurance”.

“There is no comparison between the speeches of Raja and Sarma,” a senior commission official told The Telegraph.

The poll panel official added: “One intentionally questioned the legitimacy of somebody’s birth and the other raised a matter that is already with the NIA (National Investigation Agency) without specifying details. We have banned a sitting chief minister like Yogi Adityanath from campaigning in the past, as we have done to several senior BJP leaders and ministers.”

In 2014, then BJP president Amit Shah had received a similar reprieve from the commission after he apologised for saying the Lok Sabha polls would be “revenge for the insult” of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.

Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, who too had been punished at the time for saying Muslim troops had won the Kargil conflict for India, did not apologise and got no reprieve.

Earlier on Saturday, Sarma had submitted a request for a remission to senior deputy election commissioner Dharmendra Sharma, who is in charge of the Assam polls. He had asked the commission to “accept my sincere regret and assurance of abiding (by the) MCC (model code of conduct) in future.”

Sarma had in a March 28 speech threatened Congress ally Hagrama Mohilary of the Bodoland People’s Front with an NIA probe, linking him to an arms haul. Mohilary, a former a BJP ally, is a reformed insurgent.

Sarma was found to have violated clauses 2 and 4 of the MCC that prohibit unverified allegations and intimidation.

Raja had on March 26 likened Tamil Nadu chief minister E.K. Palaniswami’s rise in politics to being “born in an illegal manner, in a premature birth”. The poll panel said it was “not only derogatory but also obscene and lower(ed) the dignity of motherhood”.

Palaniswami later broke down during a speech, and Raja publicly apologised. After the poll panel on April 1 banned him from campaigning for 48 hours, Raja challenged the punishment unsuccessfully before Madras High Court.