Graffitie unchecked despite EC ban

This story I had written without the thought that it would make to the front page of the Hindustan Times – Bhopal edition. When I was riding back after submitting the forms for the issue of election commission passes to cover the Madhya Pradesh elections in 2002 on 17th October, I happened to see the walls all over the city defaced with the political parties trying to get the better space on someone else’s walls by promoting and prompting the voters to cast their vote to their respective party. This I thought had been banned by the Central election commission and the State EC too. But the rules were being opulently flouted by the political parties and their candidates. So I came back to the office and asked my RE if I could go ahead and write the story, to which he readily obliged and guided me how to go about it.

Political parties may not have announced candidates for the forthcoming State Assembly elections but graffiti by their likely contestants has begun in right earnest. And this is happening despite clear guidelines of the Election Commission against graffiti for electioneering.
On the arrival of Samajwadi Party chief Mulyam Singh Yadav, party workers too to large-scale graffiti in the old city areas. And when they were removed at the behest of District Collector Anurag Jain, film actor Raza Murad in this typical style chided him for being partisan during Yadav’s rally.
“You can not rub off Mulyam Singh’s name from the hearts of the people. You can only scrub off our slogans from the walls but so it with the Congress slogans as well”, he said.
He seems to be right here. Slogans are being scrubbed off the walls but supporters of the Congress leaders like MLA from Bhopal (South) P C Sharma are writing new slogans seeking vote for the Congress after congratulating people on Diwali.
In the entire stretch from Roshanpura to Priyadarshani Park and beyond, three blocks of slogans – congratulating people on the Deepawali, seeking support for P C Sharma and then appealing for vote to the Congress – abound on both sides of the road. And is has happened in the past week even after Jain convened a meeting of all political parties and took an undertaking from them to desist from graffiti.
While talking to the Hindustan Times, Jain said that it has not been brought to his notice. But if graffiti is done on private property without the consent of the owner, he might well lodge an FIR with the police and prompt action would be taken. If walls of public property were defaced this way, he would take suo moto action.
Here lies the catch. Most of the buildings on this stretch are residential complexes with no single owner and public properties like offices and parks. On the other side of the road are shanties. In both cases, an FIR seems improbable though no consent was sought from anyone.
Jain said that in the case of private property action could only be taken when there is an FIR. “The Defacement of Property Act does not come into effect at the time of elections alone. Graffiti by anyone without consent of the owner is punishable in any case. But after model code of conduct came into effect, it has become my responsibility to ensure that there is no graffiti on public places and without consent of the owner private property is also not defaced”, he said.
He further informed that a decision was taken at the all=party meeting not to write fresh slogans on the walls and rub off all the slogans already written throughout the City.
“The Samajwadi Party workers had violated the rule during the visit of their party chief but slogans written then were immediately removed”, he said.
Jain said that a team of seven persons has been deputed at each of the police station areas to rub off the slogans and the process would pick up after the Prime Minister’s visit on Sunday.