EC will continue to issue advisories if hate speeches are made

Notwithstanding objection raised by BJP over Election Commission's advisory to it on Varun Gandhi's hate speech, the electoral body has made it clear that it will continue to take such action in similar cases.       

Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi, while expressing satisfaction over the conduct of Lok Sabha elections, gave nine out of 10 to the EC for the massive electoral exercise.      

On the issue of Varun's hate speech, he replied in the affirmative when asked whether the EC would issue advisories again if such a situation arose.      

BJP had objected to issuance of the advisory, saying the EC had not powers to do so.       

"The media attention has been too much on this issue. The hate speech we encountered, we issue notices in the same way (in such cases). There were other cases and we did exactly the same thing," Quraishi told Karan Thapar's 'India Tonight' programme on CNBC.       

Noting that the EC has "no power to disqualify a candidate", he said "we gave an advice to BJP that since they said they are distancing themselves from it our advice is why don't you prove it.      

"We could have given a direction. We sent another advisory to all political parties to read the model code. Of course the code was prepared by them. We advise them to follow it in letter and spirit."

On the controversy over EC's advisory on Varun Gandhi's alleged hate speech issue, Quraishi said EC went by the CD which contained the speech of the BJP candidate in Pilibhit.        

"Our response time had to be quick. We saw the CD and went by the prima facie (evidence) in judgement and we thought the CD was fine and took a decision," he said.        

Asked why similar advisories were not issued against people accused in 1984 anti-Sikh riots, he said "we could not have gone through all the 2,000 cases pending for the last 30 years. Here is an occasion (the hate speech) when an incident was likely to create rift and social tension and communal riots."       

Asked about his view on the Lok Sabha polls, Quraishi said "I would give nine out of 10 for the conduct of the elections and the one which I am deducting is because some voters did not turn up. ... Even some losing candidates have rung up to congratulate us."       

Rejecting charges that clubbing all naxal-hit ares together for polling led to several killings, the Election Commissioner said it was a "master stroke" to conduct the election together in those areas.

"Bunching the elections together in naxal-affected areas was no mistake. That scheduling was a master stroke," Quraishi said, adding the Commission felt after consultations with the Home Ministry and others that "if the elections are done together in 17 naxal-affected states together it will give us an advantage."        

He said the Commission could adopt the "same scheduling" in holding elections in those areas in future as well.       

Talking about the opinion and exit polls, the Election Commissioner said these are "manipulated" and should not be permitted.        

"We believe that exit polls and opinion polls are manipulated. They do influence free and fair polls and every political party opposed it," he said.         

He, however, said the issue is before the Supreme Court.