Hindu nationalist party decides to challenge EC’s censuring of leader over hate speech
By Iftikhar Gilani
NEW DELHI: India’s main Hindu nationalist party refused on Monday to drop the great-grandson of India’s first prime minister as a candidate after the Election Commission (EC) found him guilty of hate speech and inciting violence against Muslims.
The Indian Election Commission had censured Varun Gandhi, 29, for making hate speech against Muslims and had advised the party to drop his candidature. After a two-hour long meeting of top leaders, the BJP decided to challenge the EC suggestion. The Election Commission’s advice is unprecedented as it is not an issue confined to Varun Gandhi or the BJP but a “very large issue at it has a serious implication for the Indian democracy as it seeks to redefine the contours of democratic practices”, BJP spokesman Balbir Punj told reporters at the BJP headquarters here.
“The party shudders to think what would happen to free and fair conduct of elections if the EC itself starts moving beyond the scope of the well-established law and practice. It is now seeking to prevent someone who has yet to be charge-sheeted and yet to be convicted to contest the elections while there are innumerable cases of convicted persons contesting and even getting elected,” he said. Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi asserted that whether the EC had powers to advice or not was not the primary issue as this could be decided in court. But, he added, the real issue was of propriety and morality to which BJP keeps vowing. “Should it not have taken steps against Varun even without the EC order,” he asked.
Nayantara Sahgal, the 82-year-old novelist and niece of Jawaharlal Nehru said: “Not just Nehru, even Feroze Gandhi, Varun’s grandfather, must be turning in his grave at some of the things he is saying.” Nayantara described Varun’s anti-Muslim speech in Pilibhit as “disgraceful” and “horrifying”. Separately, in a rejoinder sent to the EC on Monday – in response to its Sunday night order – Varun conveyed his “deep disappointment over the unseemly haste in which the EC has passed an opinion without giving me even a fair opportunity to appear in person or through counsel to establish my innocence”.
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