Thackeray disenfranchised
Tribune News Service and agencies

NEW DELHI, July 28 — The Shiv Sena chief Mr Bal Thackeray, has been disenfranchised for a period of six years, sources in the Election Commission said today.

The Chief Electoral Officer has struck off Mr Thackeray’s name from the voters’ list in Mumbai, an agency report said.

The decision to strike off his name for six years was taken by a two-member Bench of the Commission headed by the Chief Election Commissioner Dr M S Gill and the Election Commissioner, Mr J M Lyngdoh after the Supreme Court upheld an order of the Bombay High Court finding Mr Thackeray guilty of inciting hatred among communities during an election speech.

As per law, the President, Mr K R Narayanan had referred the Supreme Court order to the EC to decide on the quantum of penalty to be imposed on the Shiv Sena supermo following the apex court’s decision.

The two-member Bench of EC then took a decision and submitted it to the President who accepted it. A gazetted notification to this effect was issued on July 17, EC sources said.

As per the order, Mr Thackeray will not be entitled to vote in any election from December 11, 1995 till the expiry of the six year period.

The EC order pertains to certain electoral malpractices committed by Mr Thackeray and Mr Yashwant Prabhu in the 1987 Vile Parle assembly byelection where they made inflammatory speeches.

The Bombay High Court had held them guilty in 1991 of misusing religion during campaign. While Mr Prabhu was disqualified for six years on the basis of the High Court verdict, the Shiv Sena had appealed against the verdict in the Supreme Court which was decided in 1995.

MUMBAI:The Shiv Sena on Wednesday expressed its 'displeasure' at the Election Commission’s order disenfranchising Sena Supremo Bal Thackeray for six years.

Sena spokesman Subhash Desai said one could understand debarring from contesting elections or voting inside legislature or parliament, "But it is not proper to deny someone his right to vote in general elections."

Mr Desai said Mr Thackeray had been informed about the EC's order and he would react to it later.

Meanwhile, Mr Thackeray received a large number of Shiv Sainiks and Sena leaders at his residence Matoshri on the occasion of Guru Purnima on Wednesday.

Reacting to the EC decision, the BJP, the alliance partner of Sena in Maharashtra, said the concept of Hindutva would have to be deliberated upon once again in greater detail in the light of the order.

The BJP Maharashtra spokesman, Mr Prakash Jawadekar, said, "This order has no practical effect as Mr Thackeray is not contesting."

Mr Jawadekar said Mr Thackeray's speech had elucidated the concept of Hindutva. "One must look at Hindutva as a wider and secular concept rather than a parochial one," he added.

The petitioner in the High Court was Congress' Prabahkar Kunte, who had lost an Assembly byelection from Vile Parle constituency to Sena's candidate Ramesh Prabhu in 1987.

MUMBAI: Meanwhile, Shiv Sena supremo criticised his disenfrenchisement but said there was no question of challenging it.

"I really pity a democracy in which one's right to vote is taken away," Mr Thackeray said in a statement here.

"It is out of question to challenge the decision of the President and the Election Commission," he said.

He said it was for President K.R. Narayanan to decide whether it was appropriate to deny a citizen his voting right in a democracy.

"The people and the country would be greatly obliged if the President and the EC invoke their powers and consider proposing a new law (that does no debar citizens from voting in elections)", he said.