The Election Commission today deferred the hearing on the controversial anti-Muslim CD after the saffron party sought more time to reply to the Congress petition that Uttar Pradesh BJP leaders present at the CD’s release be barred from the ongoing Assembly elections. It also sought a CBI investigation. The hearing will now take place on Wednesday.

In another development, BJP leaders Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi submitted a letter to Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami with the request that Election Commissioner Navin Chawla be asked to stay away from the hearing as there was a Supreme Court petition pending against him, which had been filed by the BJP.

Playing down the letter episode, sources in the Commission said, “The Wednesday hearing stands. The EC holds a quasi-judicial hearing where all parties concerned need to have full knowledge of the complaint so that each party can present or defend its case. Therefore, the BJP was given more time.”

The sources also indicated that “some decision” on the matter would be taken “at the earliest” as the issue relates to the ongoing election process in Uttar Pradesh.

With a formidable political line-up — the Congress in tandem with the CPI(M) as well as the BSP, SP and Jan Morcha — pitted against it, the BJP sent a battery of lawyers including Jaitley and Prasad, along with Naqvi, to argue the petition filed against the party.

Union Minister Kapil Sibal, who was lending his legal might to present the Congress view at the EC hearing today, told The Indian Express that the BJP had sought more time as “our petition is far more comprehensive than the others. We have cited other instances to prove that this is no isolated incident. BJP had released similar CDs in 2005 and 2006.”

... contd.