NEW DELHI, 10 December 2007 — India’s Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi turned 61 yesterday, with the day marked by a rather unwelcome notice from the Election Commission (EC).
Proceeding ahead with a complaint filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the EC issued a notice to Sonia yesterday on her “merchant of death” remarks made during an election rally in Gujarat. The EC also issued a notice to senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh for making remarks about “existence of Hindu terrorism in Gujarat.”
The EC’s notice follows Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s reply to the notice issued to him for having allegedly justified the killing of a Sohrabuddin Sheikh in Gujarat in a fake encounter.
In his reply submitted to EC on Saturday, Modi denied having ever justified Sohrabuddin’s murder and blamed Sonia for having first violated the code of conduct by calling him a “merchant of death.”
“At no stage, I have controverted (opposed) the affidavit filed by the Gujarat government in the Supreme Court of India. I have already clarified my position that I do not support fake encounters,” Modi said. Requesting the commission to withdraw its notice against him, Modi said: “At no point of time, I have either justified the specific encounter of Sohrabuddin’s case.”
Referring to Sonia having first called him “merchant of death” in her speech, Modi said: “Surely it cannot be the policy of the commission first to ignore the violation of the code of conduct in her statement and then censor my political response to that statement.”
The BJP and its senior leader L.K. Advani had also questioned EC’s stand on Sonia’s remark. The BJP views EC’s notice to Sonia as its vindication. “Congress leaders like Sonia Gandhi had deliberately provoked Narendra Modi. There have been so many flip-flops in the past by the Congress that it was bordering on being ridiculous,” BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said.
The day was also marked by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) threatening midterm national elections, if the government continues talks on the nuclear deal with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) after December. This is the first time that the CPI-M has set a deadline for the government on the controversial India-US civilian nuclear deal.
Emphasizing that the CPI-M does not want to disturb its alliance with Congress at present because of Gujarat polls, CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat said: “We don’t want the BJP to benefit from the fall of the government (at the center) but we don’t want them to carry on with IAEA talks beyond December. When they come back from talks now that is enough. But if the government goes ahead with the talks, then it should be prepared for midterm polls.”
