Indian Express editorial asks BJP to conform to Election Commision Order

(Indian Express
May 10, 2007)

Editorial

Correct, EC

BJP would emerge the better by conforming to the Commission’s order on the offensive CD

The Election Commission has had to tread a very fine line on the controversial compact disc released by Lalji Tandon, one the the party’s seniormost leaders in Uttar Pradesh, at the beginning of what has proved to be a long, arduous and complex election. On the one hand, the Commission had to reckon with angry demands, raised by BJP’s political opponents, that the party be de-recognised for promoting hate speech. On the other, it had to assess whether the party had sufficiently distanced itself from the offensive CD.

The first thing the EC did right was to separate the CD issue from the heat, dust and passion of electoral campaigning. It waited until the last vote was cast, before it spoke out. The EC refused to get intimidated by the BJP’s strategy of trying to undermine its credibility by attempting to target one specific election commissioner. Its verdict, when it came, also passed the test of electoral propriety. By asking the BJP to issue an “unequivocal and unambiguous declaration” in condemnation of the CD, it was abiding by the letter and spirit of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which categorises the promotion of feelings of enemity between different groups of citizens as a corrupt electoral practice. The EC also refused to oblige those in favour of quickfix solutions like de-recognition although it did not, interestingly, completely rule out that possibility.

For the BJP, there is only one course of action. True, the party suffers from no dearth of individuals who believe that it should brazen its way out of the embarrassing strictures. But that would be a spectacularly obtuse thing to do, given that its top leaders had promptly disassociated themselves from the CD when the controversy first broke out. If the BJP wants to put this sorry saga behind it as swiftly as possible and move on, it should conform to the EC’s order.

editor@expressindia.com