"The three gentlemen are back yet again," quipped Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Friday, referring to a popular meme circulating during the Lok Sabha elections that dubbed them as the "laapata gentlemen".

This lighthearted remark came as he announced the assembly polls for Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana.

At the start of the press briefing, where he introduced fellow commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Kumar said, "The three gentlemen are back yet again."

During the Lok Sabha elections this year, social media was abuzz with memes accusing the Election Commission of being inactive amid alleged violations of the model code of conduct by top leaders during the campaign. The memes played off the title of a movie, "Laapata Ladies."

In a previous press conference on June 3, held on the eve of vote counting, Kumar had jokingly remarked that people would soon see memes on social media with the tagline, "The 'laapata gentlemen' are back."

"We were never out; we were always here. We chose to interact with you through our press notes. This was the first time we issued close to 100 press notes and advisories all together," he explained.

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