New Delhi: The Election Commission of India has written to the Jharkhand chief secretary, calling a letter written to it last month by the state’s cabinet secretary on Bharatiya Janata Party leaders fomenting hatred in the state “posturing.”
The EC’s letter on September 30 has been reported on by Indian Express.
As The Wire had reported, in its letter to the EC, dated September 2, the Jharkhand government – through cabinet secretary Vandana Dadel – accused Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan of having a tendency to spread hatred across communities and threaten bureaucrats of the state.
The letter questioned “false statements” made by a visiting chief minister and asked if they would amount to character assassination of the host state’s government functionaries, including top bureaucrats.
The letter also referred to the previous “removal and debarment” from election duty of former Deoghar Deputy Commissioner Manjunath Bhajantri by the EC, along with other action against top cops based on complaints by Godda MP from Bharatiya Janata Party, Nishikant Dubey. Dubey had alleged that Bhajantri was behind the registration of five cases against him with “malafide intention” in the backdrop of a by-election held in 2021.
The Express report mentioned that the EC called this letter “posturing and promotion of an avoidable narrative of violation of federal space”. It also claimed that the letter was written “apparently to avoid compliance of lawful directions of ECI on evidently untenable grounds”.
The report said that the EC also reiterated that action must be initiated against Bhajantri, as it had ordered in 2021. The report quotes from the letter:
“…this Court is of the view that such recommendation which has been made by the Election Commission of India dated December 6, 2021 cannot be said to be optional, rather, it is mandatorily to be accepted by the State, otherwise the constitutional spirit of the establishment of Election Commission of India will be frustrated…”
Jharkhand is set to go to polls later this year and has seen a spike in hate speech during campaigns by the BJP.
At a rally in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh on October 2, Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed that the population of Hindus and Adivasis is declining and that of “Bangladeshi infiltrators” is increasing under the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha government.
Bangladesh had, on September 23, lodged a protest note with India over similar comments made by Union home minister Amit Shah.
