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Congress asks EC to bar Vajpayee, Advani from contest

The Congress on Wednesday demanded that Bharatiya Janata Party leaders L K Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee be disqualified from contesting the current election.

The reason quoted: They had violated electoral laws by using the photographs of Guru Gobind Singh and Mahatma Gandhi on posters.

The party has sent a complaint to the Election Commission. A delegation of Congressmen plan to meet the commissioners when they return to the capital on Thursday, party spokesman Surinder Singla said.

The matter has been taken up with the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee and the chief priest of the Akal Takht, he added.

A controversial poster-cum-calendar, which the BJP headquarters issued, showed the two leaders overshadowing the 10th guru of the Sikhs. This was an insult to the Sikhs and all other right thinking Indians, Singla said.

''The place for Guru Gobind Singh in the minds of the Sikhs is clearly not the same as he is with the BJP leaders,'' he said.

The BJP, Singla continued, preaching its own kind of Hindutva had always tried to undermine the importance of other faiths.

''They have treated the Sikh community as a Hindu sub-segment which gives them the right to treat the Sikhs and their gurus in any manner they desired,'' he said.

Under the law, the names or photographs of religious leaders and the Father of the Nation cannot be used in an election campaign.

Though the BJP poster carried photographs of some freedom fighters, it did not have the photo of any Muslim freedom fighter, Singla pointed out.

UNI

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Action sought against BJP for 'misusing' national flag

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