Delhi: Amidst the election frenzy, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and lawyer, Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Delhi High Court (HC) seeking directions to the Election Commission (EC) for reviewing parties having names or symbols with religious connotations.
As reported in the PTI, Upadhyay had approached the Delhi HC on May 16 contending that use of names with religious connotations or symbols similar to the national flag or emblem might prejudicially affect the poll prospects of a candidate and would amount to a corrupt practice under the Representation of the People Act (RPA), 1951.
The plea stated, “Review the political parties registered with religious, caste, ethnic or linguistic connotations and ensure that they are not using a flag, similar to the national flag and deregister them if they fail to change it within three months.” The plea further added that such a step would help in ensuring free and fair elections.
Notably, Upadhyay, in his petition has mentioned the names of political parties such as Hindu Sena, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and Indian Union Muslim League as examples of names with religious connotations and said this was “against the spirit” of the RPA and the Model Code of Conduct.
“In addition, there are many political parties including Indian National Congress, which use a flag similar to the national flag, which is also against the spirit of the RPA,” the plea has said.
While it is a right of every citizen to file a PIL for the larger good of the public, but such a plea in between the election season, that also from a BJP leader, raises questions on its motive. This is especially questionable considering the communal remarks passed by various BJP leaders including Amit Shah, Giriraj Singh and Yogi Adityanath.
Earlier, Giriraj Singh had appealed to the EC to ban green flags as “they spread hate and not love.” Taking a dig at Rahul Gandhi’s nomination from Wayanad (a Muslim majority constituency), Singh had said, “Did you see the procession in Wayanad when Rahul Gandhi filed his nomination papers? It seemed he was going to contest from Rawalpindi in Pakistan. The flags seen there bore so much resemblance with Pakistan flags.” However, those flags belonged to the Indian Union Muslim League, that has been named in Upadhyay’s PIL.
It is also significant to note that the PIL was filed just a few days before the final phase of the 2019 general election was to take place on May 19. Thus, the contention that deregistration of parties who fail to change their names or symbols would help in free and fair elections doesn’t hold good.
Therefore, there is a high probability of the presence of a political angle associated to this PIL.
The Delhi HC has deferred the hearing till May 24.
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