India election board seeks to bar Gandhi family scion from polls (Roundup)

Mar 23, 2009, 9:56 GMT

   New Delhi - India's Election Commission has found the grandson of the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi guilty of making anti-Muslim statements during political rallies, and said he should not be nominated as a candidate for the upcoming general elections, news reports said Monday.

   In an order issued late Sunday night, the Election Commission said the speeches by Varun Gandhi contained 'highly derogatory references and seriously provocative language of a wholly unacceptable nature against a certain community,' the Indian Express daily reported.

   Gandhi is alleged to have made the 'hate speech' during campaigning for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the constituency of Pilibhit in northern Uttar Pradesh state in early March.

   The commission said it was convinced that the footage of the speech had 'not been tampered with, doctored or morphed as alleged by the respondent (Gandhi).' It said the 29-year politician did not deserve to be a candidate in the elections that will be held from April 16 to May 13.

   'Any sponsorship of his candidature by the BJP, or any other political party at this election, would be perceived as endorsing his unpardonable acts of inciting violence and creating feelings of enmity and hatred between different classes of citizens of India, destroying the social, democratic and plural fabric of the country,' the order said.

   Soon after criminal charges were filed against him on the directions of the Election Commission, Gandhi last week denied making the speech and said a 'political conspiracy' had been hatched against him.

   'Those are not my words, and that is not my voice. I have not made any communal statement,' he said in a press conference.

   'It [the video] has been doctored. It is a malicious attempt to brand me as communal,' he said adding, 'There is no question of my having any ill feeling towards [any] community. India is the home to all faiths and beliefs, and I respect this.'

   Leaders from the ruling Congress party - headed by Sonia Gandhi, widow of Indira Gandhi's eldest son, Rajiv - have called for barring him from elections. Some Congress leaders also demanded that he be arrested.

   Varun Gandhi is the son of Indira Gandhi's second son, Sanjay Gandhi. His mother, Maneka, was estranged from the Nehru-Gandhi family after her husband died in a plane crash.

   Experts said the commission's recommendation was not 'legally enforceable,' and the BJP asserted Varun Gandhi would be the party candidate in Pilibhit.

   'The Election Commission doesn't have the right to suggest or advise a political party on which candidate is to be fielded,' BJP spokesman Balbir Punj told reporters.

   Punj charged the commission of bias. He said it had given such a strong recommendation because Chief Election Commissioner-nominee Navin Chawla had close links with Sonia Gandhi.

   'The entire episode smacks of prejudice and bias,' Punj said.