BJP alleged EC over FIR against Rajnath Singh

BJP alleged that UP’s chief electoral officer had acted under pressure from the Mulayam Govt to register FIR, reports HS Bartwal.

Going on the offensive on the CD controversy , the BJP on Saturday alleged that UP’s chief electoral officer had acted under pressure from the Mulayam Singh Government to register an FIR against party president Rajnath Singh as an afterthought.The BJP chief will not seek anticipatory bail and will court arrest in Lucknow on April 9, the party said.

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Asserting that the Election Commission had not directed the state official to register a case against the BJP chief as such, party spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad expressed the suspicion that the chief electoral officer had colluded with local authorities to insert Singh’s name in a second FIR lodged a day after the first one on April 5 which carried no names.

This was highly unusual as in none of the previous instances of violation of poll code conduct was an FIR registered against any national level leaders of a party like Lalu Prasad , Mulayam Singh Yadav or Sharad Pawar, he stated.

In Muzaffarnagar, Rajnath Singh described the EC move against him as “unjustified” saying that the police was free to arrest him.The party president could not be held responsible for the action of a local party worker, he said.

In its reply to the EC show cause notice, regarding circulation of an election propaganda CD carrying inflammatory material with regard to a minority community, the BJP said it was not authorised by the party leadership and had been inadvertently released without having been cleared by them.

The moment it was brought to their notice , it had been withdrawn and action taken immediately against the party functionary responsible for it,the EC was told.Prasad expressed the hope that in light of this, the EC would withdraw its notice to the party.