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EC order inappropriate, says BJP chief

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI NOV. 14. The Bharatiya Janata Party today charged the Chief Election Commissioner, J.M. Lyngdoh, with playing politics and described the Commission's order suggesting a ban on the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's proposed `Vijay yatra' in Gujarat as an attack on the fundamental right of the people to free speech and movement.

The most charitable view is that the EC's order was "inappropriate", the BJP president, Venkaiah Naidu, said today. "In a democracy, people must have the right and liberty of free speech and movement and any restriction on this is not positive," he added. The party spokesperson, Arun Jaitley, charged Mr. Lyngdoh with "entering the political thicket" even while claiming that the VHP `yatra' was not a political but "religious activity".

For nearly 24 hours after the EC's order, the BJP was unwilling to react. The party was depending heavily on the VHP's campaign; the VHP not being a political party, it could say and do things the BJP could not without attracting adverse notice from the EC, it was calculated. At the same time, the party did not want to attract criticism for criticising the Election Commission.

Apparently, the party decided to take up the cudgels for the VHP to help itself, believing that a "controversy" would get it more votes. "Over several weeks, there have been statements and communications from the Election Commission, but the party consciously did not join issue, for we did not want to undermine the credibility of the EC," Mr. Jaitley said. But he also made it clear that the State Government would have to comply with the EC's order and the BJP was not going to challenge it in any court. Clearly, the BJP is not about to make the mistake it did on VHP's `shila pujan' programme when the Supreme Court put the VHP and the Government on the mat.

Mr. Jaitley noted that Mr. Lyngdoh had described those demanding early Gujarat elections as "mad", had used intemperate language against State officials and, recently, he had alleged that the former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Farooq Abdullah, wanted to release terrorists in the State ahead of the elections.

He was also unhappy with Mr. Lyngdoh's description of the Gujarat situation as "nasty". He was not convinced that the VHP leaders had made provocative pronouncements on the massacres in Gujarat and on the lynching of Dalits in Haryana. He said the senior VHP leader, Praveen Togadia, was capable of "exemplary restraint''.

On the reported move of the VHP to take out replicas of the burnt-out S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express in the `yatra', Mr. Jaitley said the Congress had used images of Indira Gandhi's body after her assassination and it had also used electronically-created visuals of the Staines' murder in election campaigns. Why did not the EC prevent that, he asked.

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