Click to play videoA week after the Election Commission held him guilty, Varun Gandhi has been sentenced to two days in jail after he moved a surrender plea in a Pilibhit court. Hundreds turned up in the small Uttar Pradesh town to watch the drama unfold. The question that was being asked on CNN-IBN's Weekend Edition with Rajdeep Sardesai was: Has Varun Gandhi become the new Hindutva hero?
To try and answer the questions on the panel of experts were MP and Congress Spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi; BJP election strategist Sudheendra Kulkarni; Editor-in-Chief Outlook magazine Vinod Mehta; Deputy Editor the The Hindu Vidya Subrahmaniam; and the Editor of Thuglak Cho Ramaswamy.
Sudheendra Kulkarni kickstarted the debate by saying that the media interpreted Hindutva in a certain way and that is why Varun Gandhi was being projected as the hero of "that particular brand of Hindutva".
"Varun Gandhi has contested the authenticity of the CD which is the origin of this entire controversy. He has said on Saturday as well that it is a conspiracy against him. He has also said that he abides by the law and that he has full faith in the judiciary. In all these matters he reflects the BJP's point of view that the law must prevail and that there is no place for any hate politics or hate propaganda in electioneering. The BJP does not approve of the language that was used in the CD. This not our definition of Hindutva," Kulkarni said.
Kulkarni suggested that till the time that he is proven guilty, Varun Gandhi should be assumed innocent. "This is the basic principle of law," he stated.
INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY
Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that there were two things that he wanted to say at this point of time. "There is something in law called prima facie view. You give bail or deny bail on a prima facie view. You give a stay or deny a stay on a prima facie view. You don't wait till the entire process is over and that is wrong. The Election Commission has rightly acted as the entire nation has a reasonable prima facie view that this is Varun Gandhi and none other in the 15-20 minutes of the tape that was seen, rabble-rousing and hate-spewing. Secondly, see the marked difference in Varun Gandhi on Saturday from the earlier day when he gave the speech in Pilibhit," Singhvi stated.
He said that he was not saying that the Election Commission was justified in passing the order against Varun Gandhi in the first place.
"The Election Commission was not even purporting to pass a legal order. The order itself says that it is an advisory and that we do not have the power. They are right in taking the view that this is Varun Gandhi and none other till as such time as Varun Gandhi proves in the interim to the contrary," Singhvi claimed.
He said that there is a CD, a face and a voice and so the presumption is that unless there is a person who claims that this has been doctored proves it, the burden of proof will lie with the person who claims so according to the law.
Kulkarni interrupted at this point saying the BJP has held that the Election Commission has exceeded its brief and that the poll panel did not act similarly when there were others who were guilty of much more. He said that the party had on the very first day disassociated itself from the comments in the CD.
At this Singhvi said that this was not true and that only BJP Spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad had disassociated himself from the comments. He said that all the party had needed to do at that time was to simply take out a two-page circular saying that they denounce and condemn whatever Varun Gandhi said, but that all they were doing was blaming the Election Commission.
"It just required a two-line statement from the seniors leaders and then there would have been no media and the topic would not have got so much undue attention. This was a deliberate strategy. The BJP is trying to ride two horses at the same time - the rabid Hindutva communal vote and the pretended secular Hindu vote," Singhvi said.
POLARISING FOR VOTES
Kulkarni said that it was unfair to target Varun Gandhi when the BJP had 400 odd elections candidates. "In this election we have made good governance, development and security the main planks for our campaign."
He blamed the media for trying to keep this Varun Gandhi CD issue alive for such a long time. "Why should we deny him a ticket when the law is already taking its course? There are provisions in the law even for the disqualification of an elected representative, so let the law take its own course," he stated.
Vidya Subrahmaniam interrupted at this time saying that this was the same pattern that had been observed at the time of Babri Masjid, at the time of the Gujarat riots. "We don't approve of these things, we regret them but Narendra Modi became a hero after the Gujarat riots. Similarly here, we don't approve of what Varun Gandhi has said, we disassociate ourselves with it, but he becomes a hero. They did that last year as well through the Uttar Pradesh BJP CD."
Vinod Mehta joined the debate here saying that though Varun Gandhi may emerge as a Hindutva hero but he sensed that Varun was a grave embarrassment for the BJP. "Varun Gandhi has hijacked the whole agenda, the whole BJP campaign and taken it away from governance and has brought in this whole discredited agenda which the BJP is trying to shrug off. I think it will be a great tragedy for Indian democracy if this young lad is allowed to hijack the agenda and make BJP go in areas in which they should not go."
Kulkarni disagreed saying that the story may stay alive for a few days in the media. "The BJP's very well thought out campaign is to create an agenda around the misrule of the UPA Government."
Mehta said that he had no hassles with Kulkarni and that Kulkarni had his heart in the right place, but if this was the BJP's agenda, then India should have heard something unequivocal from the BJP camp denouncing Varun Gandhi's statements as heard in the CD. "We haven't heard a clear emphatic voice from the BJP saying that we disagree with what Varun Gandhi says. They should have distanced themselves from his statements and should have asked him to get back to the right agenda."
Kulkarni again reminded everyone that the party had condemned the language used in the CD and that Varun Gandhi had contested what was in the CD saying that it was not his voice and that it had been tampered with.
He said that it was high time that a law was evolved which did not approve of any kind of polarising politics.
Singhvi said that while he agreed with Kulkarni on this, in the case of Varun Gandhi there was a clear intention by the BJP to cash in on it. "Varun Gandhi is a young lad, it is really Advani and Rajnath Singh who deserve to bear the blame. They are responsible leaders of a responsible party. They are elders and if they don't share the blame, they are more blameworthy," he stated emphatically.
Cho Ramaswamy jumped into the debate at this point in time saying that it was the media and the Election Commission which has made Varun Gandhi what it is now. "He was unheard of a fortnight back. Dayanidhi Maran accused Union Telecommunications Minister Raja of huge corruption on Spectrum and Raja accused Dayanidhi Maran of corruption. Will the Election Commission advise the DMK, not to give seats and nominate both of them as candidates just because there are allegations?"
Singhvi interrupted saying, "There is a difference between mal-governance and corruption which are reprehensible and dividing a community to get votes."
Vinod Mehta agreed with Singhvi saying that the Election Commission was not to blame for the advisory and that prima facie they had found Varun Gandhi guilty.
Cho Ramaswamy disagreed saying that the Election Commission was to blame. "Prima facie they have evidence against people like Lalu Prasad as well. What is the Election Commission trying to imply? Are they saying that corruption is okay but that speeches with communal propaganda are not?"
At the end of the debate, no one could not agree on whether the Election Commission had exceeded its brief or not. What was evident was however, that the politics of hate was not going to be the driver this elections and that both parties would need a more substantial agenda of governance if they wanted to come to power.
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