SC asks EC to decide on Mayawati statues
ABRAHAM THOMAS IN THE PIONEER
SC asked Election Commission to decide within hree months a petition against Mayawati’s statues being in violation of model code of conduct. The SC was hearing a PIL by advocate Ravi Kant, who had even approached the EC complaining that the statue of elephant being BSP symbol was a malpractice.The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Election Commission to decide in three months the contentious issue concerning statues of Mayawati and those of her party symbol elephant — the latter alleged to be violative of the model code of conduct.
Hearing a PIL on the issue, a bench of Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan, Justices Deepak Verma and BS Chauhan decided to continue hearing of the petition filed by advocate Ravi Kant even after the Commission decides the issue.
Interestingly, the peti- tioner before the Supreme Court has also represented before the Election Commission saying the statues and memo- rials were violative of the model code of c o n d u c t . According to he complaint filed by advocates Ravi K ant and Sukumar, they said construc- tions carried out by the Mayawati Government vio- lated an April 1, 2009 notifi- cation issued by the poll panel. The notification expressly prohibited display of image or photograph of political functionaries in any form in Government offices or public places.
With the elephant being the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) symbol and the statue of Mayawati who herself would contest the elections in the coming State Assembly polls, the petition said, “The Bahujan Samaj Party and the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh have violated the orders of the Election Commission by installing per- manent structures of the election symbol replica of BSP and constructing several statues of the Chief Minister in public places in Lucknow and Noida. These structures will severely vio- late the Model Code of Conduct during elections.”
According to the infor- mation collected by the com- plainants, a total of 60 ele- phant statues would be installed in the State at a total cost of Rs 52.20 crore. Besides, a sum of Rs 1,940 crore was spent by Mayawati for constructing her statues in several parts of the State. Citing grounds for EC to interfere, the petition stated, “The statues have been put up in vantage point to ensure that the supremacy and fear of the power of the BSP is conveyed to the voter” in a manner to influence them and destroy fair play.
Appearing for the BSP , senior advocate SC Mishra informed the court that elephant should not be linked with BSP alone, as it has his- torical and cultural connota- tions in the country. Referring to elephant being a symbol of welcome, he argued the struc- ture was merely a sign of wel- coming people to UP . But the bench wondered, “How can we distinguish between welcome symbols and BSP symbols.”
Mishra even objected to the petitioner’s intention to remain slow as two years have already elapsed since the pro- ject was undertaken. To this, the bench reacted, “He was not aware what was behind the wheel. As soon as he came to know he approached the court.” For the State Government, senior advocate Harish Salve suggested that the objection with regard to the statues being a waste of public money could be heard by the court while the other objection regarding election symbol be taken up by the Commission. But the bench preferred to wait for the Commission’s order follow- ing which it decided to hear both the objections together.
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