By IANS
Ahmedabad/New Delhi : Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi Saturday replied to the Election Commission’s notice, saying he had not justified the extra-judicial killing of a Muslim youth even as he demanded action against Congress chief Sonia Gandhi for allegedly calling him a merchant of death.
The Election Commission will meet in New Delhi Sunday to decide on Modi’s reply.
In his response to the poll panel, Modi sought “an even handed approach” and asserted that it should also serve notice for violation of the Code of Conduct on Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Digvijay Singh.
Modi said that he referred to Sohrabuddin Sheikh – the youth who was killed by the Gujarat police in a staged shootout – in his Dec 4 speech only under provocation from Gandhi who had described him as “maut ke saudagar (merchant of death)” in her speech a day earlier.
He pointed out that the CD of his speech, on the basis of which the poll panel issued him the show cause notice, makes it clear that he never said that he had got Sheikh killed.
Apprising reporters of the contents of Modi’s reply to the poll panel, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretary Arun Jaitley said in Ahmedabad that the CD of Modi’s speech makes it clear that he never told the gathering in Mangrol in south Gujarat that “Well, that’s what I did” after the crowd said “Kill him (Sohrabuddin), Kill him.”
He said a section of the media had quoted Modi out of context and attributed distorted quotes to him.
“The Election Commission had sent us a few newspaper clippings and a CD of Modi’s speech. We have clarified that the report has several sentences which were not there in the CD, changing the whole context,” said Jatley, BJP’s in charge of the Gujarat elections.
He said the chief minister pointed out in his reply that it was rather Gandhi who had vitiated the atmosphere in the state by describing him as “merchant of death”.
While making a reference to Sheikh, Modi only wanted to point out to the gathering the state government’s policy on anti-national forces and militants as opposed to that of the Congress, he said.
“It was an irony that while Modi was served the notice for responding to Gandhi’s remark, she herself had gone scot-free. There is a deliberate attempt to censor Gandhi’s remark and castigate Modi for responding to it,” said Jaitley.
He clarified that Modi’s reply could not be filed by the 11 a.m. deadline imposed by the Election Commission as the BJP had to get Modi’s signature on the reply while he was away campaigning.
Quoting from Modi’s reply, Jaitley said the chief minister had also asked the Election Commission to serve a similar notice to Gandhi and senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh.
Modi pointed out that Gandhi in her speech at an election rally in Gujarat earlier this month had said “merchants of death” were ruling Gujarat while Singh in a media interaction had said there was “Hindu terrorism” in the state.
Jaitley said that while Congress leader Kapil Sibal had tried to clarify that Gandhi’s remarks were not aimed at Modi, party spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi had Saturday insisted that the remarks were indeed meant for Modi.
“Now that we have the clarification, the Election Commission must send a notice to Gandhi,” Jaitley said.
Quoting Modi’s reply, he said: “The Election Commission should also take note of the very statements to which I was responding. I too have the right to freedom of speech. If somebody calls me a merchant of death, if somebody calls people of
Gujarat Hindu terrorists, I have a right to respond.”
In New Delhi, Singhvi maintained Gandhi had Modi in mind when she spoke of “merchants of death”.
“What Mrs Gandhi said is crystal clear. In view of Modi’s acts, omissions and utterances over several years, Mrs Gandhi’s statement is not only apposite but also mild,” Singhvi insisted.
While the anti-terror squad of the Gujarat police had killed Sohrabuddin near Ahmedabad in November 2005 after branding him a terrorist, a Supreme Court-ordered probe had led to the arrest of several top police officers and the state police had admitted to their errors in an affidavit before the apex court.
Besides the poll panel notice, the chief minister also faces two petitions in the Supreme Court for a probe into his alleged complicity in the killings of Sheikh, his wife Kausar Bi and family friend Tulsiram Prajapati.
Gujarat goes to polls on Dec 11 and Dec 16.