INDIA bloc meets EC, flags ‘misuse’ of Central agencies
A day after the arrest of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by the Enforcement Directorate in the excise policy case, a delegation of INDIA bloc leaders on Friday called on the Election Commission (EC) to allege “unrelenting, blatant and illegal deployment of Central Agencies” by the ruling BJP to target the Opposition parties.
The delegation presented a memorandum in which the INDIA bloc leaders submitted a list of 10 instances of agencies going after the Opposition parties since January and the absence of a level playing field in the elections.
The delegation included Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal, his colleague Abhishek Singhvi, Trinamool Congress’s Derek O’Brien and Nadimul
Haque, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, among others.
AAP leaders Sandeep Pathak and Pankaj Gupta, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) leader Jitendra Awhad, DMK’s P. Wilson and Javed Ali of the Samajwadi Party were also part of the delegation.
While the JMM, RJD and Shiv Sena (UBT) could not send any representatives, the Opposition leaders said all parties supported the memorandum.
This is the first time that the Trinamool has shared a common platform with the Congress after seatsharing didn’t fructify and the party decided to go alone in West Bengal.
“We pointed out this is not a normal complaint, it is a larger issue of affecting, impairing, undermining, and sabotaging the basic structure of the Constitution,” Mr. Singhvi said.
He pointed out that level playing field is “the heart and soul” of free and fair elections, which, in turn, is at the heart of democracy itself.Asserting that the Supreme Court has held democracy as part of the basic structure, Mr. Singhvi added, “The moment you skew, render the level playing field into a nonlevel playing field, what do you do? You are actually affecting democracy and therefore the basic structure. How do you do it, you use and misuse agencies blatantly.”
The Congress leaders said that 20yearold cases were being revived to target Opposition leaders. “The Election Commission has been given the responsibility and is the police to protect this level playing field. We asked the Election Commission to interfere,” Mr. Singhvi said.
Among the instances mentioned in the memorandum were CBI registering an FIR against Trinamool’s Mahua Moitra, raids and arrest of leaders of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), which is not a part of the INDIA bloc, arrest of former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad’s aide, arrest of JMM leader Hemant Soren and freezing of the Congress’s accounts.
“Therefore there emerges a clear, deliberate and sinister pattern, where the ruling regime is abusing its power, and completely destroying any semblance of a level playing field for other political parties contesting the Lok Sabha elections,” the memo read.