A welcome gavel blow

Friday 18th February, 2022

An interesting court order in respect of the Tamil Nadu Election Commission (TEC) has been reported while the Election Commission (EC) of Sri Lanka is making arrangements for a meeting with the heads of political parties. The EC meeting to be held next week has given rise to speculation that the local government elections may be held sooner than expected. But the question is whether the government, facing numerous crises, is ready for an electoral contest at this juncture.

The Madras High Court (HC) has ordered the TEC to remove all the posters that candidates contesting local government elections have put up on wayside walls in Chennai. Warning that noncompliance would be deemed contempt of court and severely dealt with, the HC has ordered the Greater Chennai Corporation to recover the cost of removing posters from the candidates concerned. The police have also been ordered to ensure that all the posters are removed fast.

What prompted the Madras HC to issue the order in question was a petition filed by an AIADMK candidate, who complained that one of his rivals from the DMK had put up posters covering his. In an interesting turn of events, the court ordered that all violators including the petitioner be prosecuted; he is now left with no defence, having admitted that he had his posters pasted on city walls!

The only way to prevent worthless politicians from rising above the law and becoming a public nuisance is for the judiciary to keep them in their place, and bring them down a peg or two whenever possible. In this country, too, there are laws to prevent visual pollution, especially the defacing of city walls, but politicians do not care a damn about them. Worse, the police hire workers to remove election posters instead of arresting those who paste them.

The EC of Sri Lanka ought to take note of the Madras HC order pertaining to election posters and tell the political party heads it is meeting next week that their candidates must abide by all election laws, and the onus is on them to prevent election posters from appearing in undesignated areas.

Eggs, faeces and cops

Our brave police were left with egg on their face following the recent egg attacks pro-government goons carried out on JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Two of the attackers, captured and handed over to the police, were identified as ex-military personnel attached to a security firm with links to the government. The police, who arrest even children and haul them up before courts in double quick time for stealing a few rupees or coconuts chose to give kid-glove treatment to the egg throwers. Following last Monday’s goon attack on television journalist Chamuditha Samarawickrama’s house, the police have been left with faeces on their face, so to speak; the attackers who hurled rocks and faeces at Chamuditha’s residence are still at large.

None of those responsible for Monday’s attack have even been identified so far. The police claim that they are still examining images from CCTV cameras, and several special teams have been deployed to arrest the attackers. Investigations will go on until another incident happens, distracting the media and the public, and everybody will forget the attack on Chamuditha’s house thereafter. Not even the killers of The Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge have been brought to justice although he was assassinated in full view of the public.

If it is true that the police have actually gone all out to trace those responsible for the attack on Chamuditha’s house but failed in their endeavour, their failure is very disconcerting; if the police are not equal to the task of apprehending a bunch of faeces throwers, how could they be expected to protect the public against organised criminals such as terrorists and safeguard national security?