When the Supreme Court on Thursday takes up the government of India's petition seeking a ban on surrogate political advertisements, members of two non-government organisations -- Sanjhi Virasat Trust and Kamakshi Educational Trust -- will be there to watch the proceedings.
The SVT and KET have lent their shoulders to the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party respectively to fire political salvos through audio-visual and print advertisements.
Both the BJP and the Congress have objected to each others' advertisements.
Professor Ali Javed, who teaches Urdu at the Delhi University and runs the Sanjhi Virasat Trust, told rediff.com that he would be among the first to reach the court. "We do not know what would be the outcome of the hearing in the Supreme Court, but we do maintain that the advertisements put out by the Sanjhi Virasat Trust were perfectly in order,"
he said.
One advertisement which the Bharatiya Janata Party could not digest was in which Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is described as an informer of the British government.
"The trust has eminent personalities like Kuldeep Nayyar and former member of Parliament, Ms Nirmla Deshpande and author Kamleshwar [on its board]. We will obviously abide by the court ruling. We have so far released a set of three major advertisements. We feel it is our right to expose the real face of the Bharatiya Janata Party which is bent upon dividing the polity of the country," he said.
Kamleshwar, eminent writer, journalist and winner of the prestigious Sahitya Academy Award for his book 'Aur Kitne Pakistan' last year said he has always been against the BJP.
"I have been writing in my columns against the National Democratic Alliance, and particularly the BJP, for last three years. The people who do not accept the Constitution of India, the people who do not recognise Mahatma Gandhi as
the father of the nation and believe in what his [the Mahatama's] assassin, Nathuram Godse, stood for, they start a rath yatra from Porbandar, the hometown of Bapu, and sing his praises to get votes. By all means I approve of all the advertisements that have been released so far," Kamleshwar told rediff.com.
Ali Javed studied at the Jawahar Lal Nehru University and was an active member of the All India Students' Federation.
He denies any links with the Congress party. "We are doing it on our own and the people who have some love for democratic values send in their contributions to fund the advertisements," he added.
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