The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party on Tuesday welcomed the Supreme Court decision disallowing Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, a Samajwadi party Lok Sabha nominee, to contest elections as a good precedent that will help raise the "confidence" of the common man in the electoral system.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist was of the view that the law of the land should be allowed to take its own course and that nobody should interfere in that. "These are all matters of law of the land," said CPIM Politburo member Sitaram Yechury.
The apex court decision barring Dutt also came on a day when the Congress said it will field a candidate from the Lucknow parliamentary constituency from where the star was given a Samajwadi party ticket. "We will field a candidate from Lucknow," party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said.
Earlier, AICC General Secretary in-charge of UP Digvijay Singh had said that if Sanjay Dutt contested from Lucknow, the party would not field any candidate against him. Singh's party colleague Veerappa Moily said before the court decision had come the Congress had decided not to field anyone out of respect for Sanjay's father Sunil Dutt, the late Congress MP.
Singhvi however said a candidate from Lucknow will be fielded as the alliance with the SP did not work out in UttarPradesh. Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley welcomed the decision saying it will raise the "confidence" of the common man in the electoral process. "It is a good precedent without which a floodgate would have opened."
The BJP also said Dutt's case could not be compared to that of Navjot Singh Sidhu, party MP from Amritsar, who was given permission by the Supreme Court to contest polls. The apex court had on January 23, 2007 stayed the conviction and the three-year sentence of Sidhu in a road rage case paving the way for him to contest the Amritsar Lok Sabha by-poll.
Welcoming the decision, the Bahujan Samaj Party said the Samajwadi Party was expecting it and was only indulging in "drama"."They (SP) were doing 'dramebazi' in UP as they were expecting that such decision will be coming from the Supreme Court," BSP national general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra said.
