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Journalism of Courage
The day after he was announced as the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate, posters of Vijay Kumar Malhotra were pasted all over the city.
The irony is that the BJP-led Municipal Corporation of Delhi, which started a poster removal drive last year, has been keeping quiet and is supporting the party.
On September 10, the Delhi Trial Court had issued an order seeking the remove of all political hoardings. The Election Commission had then written to Municipal Commissioner K S Mehra, asking him to ensure all illegal political posters were removed before the elections.
A 2004 order of the Delhi High Court also sought to remove all the illegal hoardings. The West Bengal Anti Defacement Act, 1972, also does not permit any individual or agency to put posters except on authorised sites. A violator may have to pay a fine of Rs 2,000 or undergo one year’s imprisonment. No individual can put up any poster without the permission of the municipal commissioner.
But municipal councillors are top violators, despite all these orders and laws. “We have organised several poster removal drives in the past. And most of these posters are of municipal councillors; so it becomes very difficult to remove them for the municipal staff,” an officer from the Remunerative Progressive Cell said. The Cell conducted a poster removal campaign last year, which was not very successful because of political pressure. A senior Corporation officer said most posters are hung by BJP workers. “Posters of all the top brass of the BJP have been put up but such is not the case with the Congress. Except a few, it is basically the members of the Youth Congress and the general secretaries of areas who have their posters put up. Since the BJP is in power at the Corporation, they feel it is their right to violate the law. The party that should have implemented the drive is a bigger violator,” an officer said.
“It just takes about Rs 1,000 to get a poster made. There is also no strict punishment for violating the order; the entire campaign has not been successful,” the officer said.
But after the fresh order from the court and a letter from the Election Commissioner, the Corporation is to restart the drive from Thursday. “The commissioner has ordered the deputy commissioners to start removing all illegal political hoardings,” Corporation spokes-person Deep Mathur said.
