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Suit Filed in Delhi High Court For Withdrawing Recognition of BJP
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Sonia
Gandhi (foreground left) leading an all-woman peace march in
Ahmedabad Wednesday
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By IOL South Asia Correspondent
NEW DELHI,
May 2 (IslamOnline): A suit for withdrawing recognition of the ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a political party has been filed in
the Delhi High Court in the wake of Gujarat riots on the grounds that
the party is promoting communal politics, that posed a threat to the
country's secular character.
Justice BN
Chaturvedi, after brief preliminary arguments on a civil suit filed by
Arya Samaj leader Swami Agnivesh, Gandhian activist Nirmala Deshpande
and former Miss India and film actress Nafisa Ali, posted the matter
for a further hearing on May 3.
The Court
said it needed some time to study the bulky documents annexed with the
complaint. Senior advocate RK Anand, appearing for the plaintiffs,
sought a decree in which recognition of the BJP as a political party
would be withdrawn by the Election Commission, saying the BJP and
other ultra nationalist Hindu outfits including RSS, VHP and Bajrang
Dal, were indulging in communal politics and attempting to destroy the
secular character of the country.
Seeking to
debar the party from contesting elections, the complaint said that the
Godhra train incident was triggered by some action of the "kar
sewaks" [Ram Temple volunteers] returning from Ayodhya.
The BJP is
ruling Gujarat as well as the central government in New Delhi.
"It is a
deliberate attempt by the Prime Minister and the State Government to
hide real facts from the public" about the Godhra incident, the
petitioners alleged. They have named the BJP, Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, Home Minister LK Advani, Human Resource Development
Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, MP Vinay Katiyar and the Election
Commission as defendants in the case.
In a related
development, soon after the defeat of the Opposition-sponsored censure
motion in Parliament Wednesday, Congress president Sonia Gandhi flew
to Porbandar in Gujarat, birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi, where she said
that the time had come for a "decisive battle" against the
"fundamentalism" of the BJP.
"It is a
matter of great shame and tragedy that Mahatma Gandhi's state is being
turned into the state of Godse [the fanatic Hindu who killed Mahatma
Gandhi in 1948]," the Congress president said at a peace rally in
the city.
Gandhi
accused the BJP of sowing the seeds of hatred in a state of harmony.
Condemning
the Godhra train incident as "insane violence," she said,
"I was among the first to criticize this attack on humanity and
our cherished traditions. At the same time, what followed Godhra was
condemnable as the work of shaitan [devil].”
"Enemies
of humanity are also enemies of religion" she said.
The BJP had
so far not been able to give anything to the people except suffering
in its rule, she added.
Later Gandhi
led an all-woman peace march in Ahmadabad, the capital of Gujarat.
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