AHMEDABAD, 12 December 2002 — It was a lull here yesterday after the campaign storm, but the voters’ silence was giving some anxious moments to political parties. Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh’s warning that the commission is keeping a strict vigilance over the activities of the parties has added to the discomfort.
Lyngdoh urged the parties to behave responsibly to ensure a free and fair polling. He warned party leaders to strictly follow the code of conduct, saying the whole world is watching the elections in Gujarat and some countries have even sent their diplomats as observers.
“The commission expects all political parties to check their over-enthusiastic supporters and see that everything is under control,” Lyngdoh told reporters.
Seventeen foreign diplomats and some 800 media personnel will be observing the polling process today.
The state police are handling security for some 37,000 polling booths, including 14,700 declared sensitive or hypersensitive. “Security forces are in adequate numbers,” Lyngdoh said. “Heavy security has been arranged in the cities of Ahmedabad, Baroda and Surat.”
BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley has claimed that his party will get an absolute majority in the elections. “The ideological polarization of voters in Gujarat is more evident than in any other states,” he told a press conference.
He blasted the opposition Congress party for getting “fatwas” of Muslim religious leaders in its favor. Rajendra Singh Rana, BJP’s Gujarat chief, also expressed anguish over Congress’ “fatwa politics”.
Both leaders said the “fatwa” urged Muslim voters to avenge the post-Godhra violence by voting out the BJP.
Chief Minister Narendra Modi flashed a copy of the “fatwa” during his last campaign rally Monday. A copy of the so-called “fatwa” obtained by Arab News showed that it was nothing but an appeal by Shabbir Ahmad Siddiqui, convenor of the All-India Muslim Ulema Council, to all secular-minded people to vote for Congress if “they wanted to defeat fascist forces.”
But the reaction against the appeal was so strong that almost all BJP leaders made it an issue in the last hours of campaigning.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) yesterday came up with its own “fatwa”, asking Hindus voters to vote for the BJP in large numbers. “Now is the time for Hindus to become a decisive force; for their safety, do 100 percent voting,” the VHP said in its appeal.
As if the barbed rhetoric was not enough, VHP workers reminded voters of the Godhra incident by sporting T-shirts, caps, badges and scarves with images of leaping flames engulfing a train.
When Arab News told Jaitley that the VHP edict and its T-shirt-cap campaign would further widen the rift between Hindus and Muslims, he said, “Not at all. There is nothing wrong in telling Hindus to be aware of their rights.”
Jaitley evaded questions on other controversial remarks in the VHP appeal. The Congress party yesterday drew the attention of the Election Commission to the VHP appeal published in a Gujarati newspaper.
The party voiced fears of renewed violence in the state and appealed to the Election Commission to take preventive measures. “We appeal to the EC to take all possible measures to ensure a free and fair poll in the State,” said the party spokesperson, Satyavrath Chaturvedi.
The party demanded deployment of additional forces in rural areas so that the people could vote fearlessly. Fears have been expressed in the Congress camp that with the election poised to go down to the wire, attempts would be made to foment trouble to prevent people from voting. “We have definite information that our opponents will try and create trouble in order to scare the people from going out to vote,” said a Congress leader.
