JOIN USBJP's cow ad prompts poll panel restriction
In an unprecedented move, the Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday told political parties not to publish advertisements in newspapers on the fifth and final phase of Bihar polls on Thursday, without approval.
On Wednesday, newspapers in Bihar splashed an advertisement placed by the BJP that showed a girl petting a cow with a caption questioning Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s silence over repeated insults heaped on the “revered cow” by his “friends”.
It carried remarks made by RJD chief Lalu Prasad, former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah who had said “Nobody can stop me from eating beef,” and urged Kumar to stop vote bank politics if he agreed with their statements.
Leaders from the Grand Alliance, comprising the Congress, JD(U) and the RJD, were quick to approach the EC objecting to the advertisements and demanding action against the BJP. By Wednesday evening, the poll panel clamped a ban on political advertisements in newspapers on polling day without its approval.
Only last week, the EC had issued a strongly-worded advisory asking the Bihar chief electoral officer to ensure that two controversial advertisements issued by the BJP were not published till the election process was over. One advertisement attacked Lalu Prasad and Kumar on reservation, while the other slammed vote bank politics. The Grand Alliance had complained against both.
Invoking its Constitutional powers under Article 324, the EC directed that “no political party or candidate or any other organisation or person shall publish any advertisement in the newspapers tomorrow (Thursday) unless the contents proposed to be published are pre-certified by the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee.” After a 2004 Supreme Court order, such restrictions had been imposed on radio and TV advertisements. In 2013, social media was also included, said sources in the EC.
“The BJP's ads show how insecure they are... such ads have not appeared in the last 40 years... If the election process is not fair, people will lose faith in democracy,” said JD(U) leader K C Tyagi. The BJP, however, defended the advertisement. “We were not the first to raise the issue (on beef). It was Lalu who did it. We have just responded,” former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi said in Patna.