New Delhi: The Election Commission on Tuesday asked the Bharatiya Janata Party to openly condemn the contents of the compact disc distributed on the eve of the Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, to remove misgivings among the people that the party was responsible for its release.

The Full Commission comprising Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami and Commissioners Navin Chawla and S.Y. Qureshi passed this order on the complaints from the Congress, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the CPI(M) and the Jan Morcha.

"It is not disputed by any party — nay, even conceded by the respondent (BJP) — that the contents of the CD are undoubtedly highly inflammatory, derogatory to the sentiments of a particular religious community and having the effect of aggravating the differences or creating mutual hatred or causing tension between different castes and communities, religious or linguistic, and contain an appeal to communal feelings for securing votes."

The order said, "It will be highly undesirable on the part of the Commission to reproduce any part of the contents of that CD — the less said about those contents, the better it is in the overall interests of communal harmony and purity of elections. Suffice to say that the material contained and depicted in that CD is grossly violative of the principles of secularism, apart from the principles of democracy and socialism."

As the BJP disowned the CD, it should make a declaration at the national level that the party "condemns, without any reservation whatsoever, the contents of the CD so that the stand taken by the party before the Commission becomes publicly known to the country and [the] public at large and any misgivings or apprehensions in their minds arising out of the distribution/dissemination of the CD or its contents stand dispelled and removed forthwith." The Commission said, "Such declaration should be made urgently on receipt of this order by them and given wide publicity by them, both in the print and electronic media, at the national level as well as at the local level, particularly in Uttar Pradesh." A compliance report should be sent by May 15.

Matter not closed

The Commission said, "It reserves its right to take further action under para 16A of the Symbols Order against the respondent party after the completion of investigation by State police authorities if it reveals the involvement of the leaders of the party at the national or State level in the production, distribution and dissemination of the CD."

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