— Photo: Anu Pushkarna

Union Minister Kapil Sibal comes out of the Election Commission after the hearing on the CD issue in New Delhi on Wednesday.

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Wednesday criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party's tactics at the hearing called by the Election Commission on the complaints on the compact disc issue. It charged that the BJP wanted to be "both the umpire and the player."

Not proper

Union Minister Kapil Sibal said for the BJP to now say that Election Commissioner Navin Chawla should recuse himself from hearing the complaints was not proper.

"The State Government has filed an FIR, and the police is to investigate as to who was behind the CD. Now the BJP says that the EC can't hear [it]. ... First they express regret and say the CD stands withdrawn, and now say they the EC can't hear [it]. It is absolutely shocking [for the BJP] to say that the EC is biased," Mr. Sibal, convener of the Media Management Committee for the Assembly elections, said at a press conference here.

The Congress, he said, wanted the answers to some questions: how many CDs were made? Where were they prepared? Who collected them, and how had they found their way into kits after release? If the CDs had not been distributed, where were they?

Mr. Sibal wanted to know how the BJP could raise an objection that was not part of the response it filed before the EC.

The Samajwadi Party's silence on the CD issue confirmed the Congress charge that it was with the BJP. The party also expressed shock over newspaper advertisements that carried BJP leader Kalyan Singh's photograph and made objectionable references to Muslims.

Worst form of target

Mr. Sibal said the advertisement stating that `madrasas' were breeding terrorists was the worst form of targeting a community and its intentions.

He maintained that the BJP should be derecognised by the EC.

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