‘Cover up order is message of unbiased election system’

Wrapping of elephant statutes in Uttar Pradesh may sound “ridiculous” but most former Election Commissions has backed the move saying the election commission is bound to provide “level playing field” for all political parties.

Updated on: Jan 10, 2012, 01:44:06 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Wrapping of elephant statutes in Uttar Pradesh may sound “ridiculous” but most former Election Commissions has backed the move saying the election commission is bound to provide “level playing field” for all political parties.

Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi who has irked BSP for ordering wrapping of the statues now had, in fact, made the commission’s intention clear in October 2010. The commission after hearing the BSP, which claimed that elephant statue was an Indian traditional symbol and cannot be related to a party, had instructed the state government to ensure that the "level playing field" is not disturbed during elections.

The commission also said that construction of the statutes was violation of the model code of conduct may not be in letter but in spirit. Only in spirit because the model code of conduct is not applicable during non-election days, when the statues were build. But could not stop construction of the statues, as UP government failed to provide expenditure and location details about the parks.

“We have just tried to provide a level playing field to all political parties. Similar orders have been issued in the past,” Quraishi told HT.

In 2004, the commission instructed the central government to cover photographs of then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on signboards on national highways. Three years later, the commission asked Madhya Pradesh government to replace all school textbooks have lotus, election symbol of BJP, imprinted on it. In 2009 general elections, the commission stopped new enrolment under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

Former Chief Election Commissions N Gopalaswamy said if the EC would have allowed public display of elephant and BSP supremo Mayawati’s statutes then other political parties would have got moral right to demand permission to erect cut-outs of its leaders and party symbol at nook and corner of the state.

As of now, the expenditure limit of Rs 16 lakh per assembly constituency creates a restriction on rampant publicity. “It is duty of the election commission to ensure fair level playing field for all political parties especially against the party in power,” he said.

Gopalswamy like some other election commissioners agreed that wrapping of the status may not make huge political difference like other measures such as not allowing a minister to hold a party meeting in a government circuit house but it sends a message of an unbiased election system.

Another former Election Commissioner T S Krishnamurthy agreed that the commission’s directive may sound “idiotic or ridiculous” but it cannot allow the ruling party to misuse public funds for seeking publicity during elections. “The statutes can create some bias in favour of the ruling party,” he said.

To put an end to the debate, Krishnamurthy suggested that the commission should get powers to withdraw election symbol of the party, which use public money to build a monument displaying the symbol. He also wanted a law to bring clarity on what sort of public monuments of living or deal leaders should be allowed.

There are just instructions that images and photographs of the Prime Minister, Chief Ministers, Ministers and other political functionaries who are active in public life should not be displayed in government buildings and premises. The Commission had clarified in 2009 that these instructions do not apply to the images of national leaders, poets and prominent historical figures of the past.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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