The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday alleged that the Election Commission (EC) is “biased” and is working at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj accused the EC of conspiring with the Prime Minister to destabilise the AAP government in Delhi.
Addressing the media at party headquarters, Bharadwaj referred to remarks by poll panel's former legal advisor SK Mendiratta that his opinion was not taken before the EC disqualified 20 AAP MlAs for holding “office of profit”.
“If advice was not taken from him (Mendiratta), it means that advice was coming from the Prime Minister's Office,” Bharadwaj said.
“Now it can be considered that the EC is biased. In any democracy, if the institutions like EC become biased then there is no greater threat to democracy. This is almost similar to the condition as if the Supreme Court is abolished,” he added.
“Even the Congress accused the EC of being biased in Gujarat and Himachal elections, when the EC declared the dates of Himachal elections and do not declare dates of Gujarat elections,” he said.
“It is now clear that the EC is getting advice directly from the Prime Minister's Office. Then Election Commissioner AK Joti has taken these decisions and whole country knows that Joti was the Chief Secretary when Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat. Even after assuming office of Election Commissioner he was doing his work,” said Bharadwaj.
The AAP leader said the former Election Commission chief during whose tenure the decision to disqualify the AAP MlAs was taken was an IAS officer who was close to Modi when the latter was the Gujarat Chief Minister.