NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday strongly criticised the lodging of the First Information Report at a police station in Lucknow against its president Rajnath Singh in the case of release of a communally inflammatory compact disc.

Mr. Singh has, however, decided not to seek anticipatory bail and will be in Lucknow on April 9 to court arrest, party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

Senior leaders L.K. Advani, Arun Jaitley, M. Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj, Yashwant Sinha, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Mr. Prasad are expected to be present there that day to lend moral support to him.

Mr. Prasad charged that the FIR was lodged under "political pressure" from the Samajwadi Party.

He said the first FIR filed at the Hazratganj station on April 5 did not name anyone but referred to the makers and distributors of the offending CD, which the party later said had been "inadvertently" released to the media as part of its campaign material for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. "We withdrew it even before the Election Commission issued notice," Mr. Prasad said.

The second FIR was filed on April 6 naming Mr. Singh, Mr. Tandon and others. Mr. Prasad said the circumstances were "suspicious."

News agencies reported that it was the State Election Commission, which had ordered the State Government to lodge FIRs against Lalji Tandon, U.P. leader who released the CD, and the president of the BJP. But the party held the Mulayam Singh Government solely responsible.

Mr. Prasad assailed the Congress, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Communist parties for demanding that the BJP be derecognised under the Symbols Order of the Representation of the People Act.

He said the FIR charged Mr. Rajnath Singh with offences under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between classes), 153B (wantonly provoking with intent to cause riots) and 505 (offences against the maintenance of public peace) of the Indian Penal Code and violation of clauses 3 and 3A, Sections 123 and 125 of the RPA.

The offences under Sections 153A and 153B were non-bailable. Mr. Prasad wanted to know why no FIRs were filed against Congress president Sonia Gandhi or Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad during earlier elections when their parties were issued notices for violation of the code of conduct.

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