Well done, Election Commission!

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Editorial
By taking strong action against Amit Shah and Azam Khan for their hate speeches during election rallies last week, the Election Commission of India has again strengthened people’s faith in the constitutional body that has a great task of conducting the world’s largest democratic election in a free and fair manner.

BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s close aide and former Gujarat minister Amit Shah, in an election meeting in Muzaffarnagar district – which witnessed a bloody riot in September last year – had asked people to take “revenge” for the “insults” inflicted on the community.

Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister and leading face of ruling Samajwadi Party, Azam Khan in his speech in Ghaziabad had made a controversial statement wherein he had said that only Muslim soldiers had sacrificed their lives to win the Kargil war in 1999 and no Hindu soldier had died.

The Election Commission took serious exception to these provocative and communal statements of the politicians and on Saturday banned the duo from holding any rally or roadshow till the conclusion of the election in mid-May. The commission also asked the local administration to register FIRs against them and initiate criminal proceeding. In its order the commission said these statements “are, inter alia, promoting feelings of enmity, hatred and ill-will and creating disharmony between different religious communities on the ground of religion.”

It is not new that politicians have given hate speeches with a calculative move to polarize voters on communal and religious lines. But the laudable strong action taken by the Election Commission is rare.

The commission deserves accolades for keeping a close eye on the activities of politicians and candidates.

Can the esteemed constitutional body be requested to monitor the activities of parties also? The way some political parties are spending thousands of millions of rupees on election campaigns has altogether altered the meaning of a fair election. Almost all spaces on TV channels, newspapers and radio have been bought by certain parties to project their prime ministerial candidate. The overall message or impact of such a one-sided massive media campaign is that readers and viewers alike have become confused about their choice.

Like an expense limit for candidates, there is an urgent need to have such restrictions on parties also to ensure voters are not influenced by engineered media campaign.

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