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New Delhi
The Election Commission has deferred to Thursday its hearing on the controversial CD in which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been accused of inciting communal passions, even as the party continued to object to Election Commissioner Navin Chawla's presence at the hearing.

While the non-BJP parties have accused the party of delaying the hearing on the CD row by raising "non-serious issues", the commission made it clear Wednesday that all its members, including Chawla, would hear the case.

Sources in the Election Commission said it could ask some BJP leaders, who were allegedly involved in the CD row, to keep away from campaigning.

Four parties - former prime minister V.P. Singh's Jan Morcha, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party and Congress - had approached the commission seeking BJP's de-recognition as a national party saying that it had violated the election code by releasing the CD ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections that began April 7.

The poll panel had earlier filed a police complaint against BJP chief Rajnath Singh and Uttar Pradesh BJP leader Lalji Tandon in connection with the CD.

The sources said neither the commission nor the chief election commissioner have powers to direct one of the three-member panel to keep himself away from the hearing unless the member voluntarily refrains from it.

"The proceedings in the morning, which was meant for hearing the complaints against the BJP, did not take place as they (the BJP leaders) were keen to delay the process," alleged Congress leader and Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal.

But the defensive BJP said Chawla, whom it has accused of being partial to the ruling Congress party, should be kept away as there was a Supreme Court case pending against him.

"The party has submitted a petition before the Election Commission against the presence of a member against whom 205 NDA (National Democratic Alliance) MPs had made a representation before the president. Another petition against him is before the Supreme Court. There is a reasonable likelihood of bias and that member should not take part in the hearing," BJP leader Ravi Shanker Prasad told reporters.

The BJP backed up its demand by citing the Jayalalithaa vs. Subramaniam Swamy case, in which former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalitha had said that then election commissioner T.N. Seshan should not be present during the hearing of the case as Swamy's wife was related to Seshan.

Sibal said although the Congress was not pressing for de-recognition of the BJP, it wanted the commission to issue an administrative order to stop distribution of the CD in Uttar Pradesh.

Alleging that the BJP was aiming to divide people on religious lines, he said his party would also take up with the commission another matter related to communally sensitive advertisements that appeared in regional newspapers in Uttar Pradesh Wednesday.

The advertisements, which accuse the Congress, BSP and Samajwadi Party of "Muslim appeasement" by protecting groups like the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), ask: "Kya inka irada pak hai? (Are their intentions pure?)"

"Pak", meaning pure in Urdu, can also be taken to mean Pakistan.

"(Senior BJP leader) Kalyan Singh has endorsed the advertisements. It is shocking. There cannot be a worse form of communalisation of elections," Sibal said.

BJP leaders Prasad, Arun Jaitley and Mukthar Abbas Naqvi were present at the Election Commission to convey the party's views on the controversial CD.

The CD, released last week by Uttar Pradesh BJP leader Tandon in Lucknow, has drawn severe criticism for its inflammatory contents.

Non-BJP parties, including the Congress, have demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the CD.

The BJP has disowned all responsibility for the disc. Party leaders have admitted that the CD was prepared as campaign material but said they would have sought the poll panel's clearance before releasing it. But it got released inadvertently and without authorisation, they say. 

IANS | April 11, 2007

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