 "BJP casts aspersions at Election Commission's neutrality")
Senior leaders Arun Jaitley and Amit Shah led the Varanasi protest at the city's Lanka chowk. In Delhi, Venkaiah Naidu and Ravi Shankar Prasad led BJP workers from party headquarters at 11, Ashoka Road to the EC office nearly two kilometers away.
Modi attacked EC at his public rally in Azamgarh, accusing the poll body of being biased.
"Polling should be free and fair but in the last three phases it did not happen," Modi alleged. He said there have been serious electoral malpractices in the last three phases of elections in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal which the EC failed to prevent.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram and former BJP ally Janata Dal (United) president Sharad Yadav criticised BJP's attack on EC.
"When a party's PM nominee attacks EC, it speaks more of the person than EC," finance minister Chidambaram said in Delhi. Yadav said the BJP was trying to make an issue out of every non-issue.
"The returning officer in Varanasi refused to grant me permission to hold rallies in that city. But I didn't start shouting against EC from rooftops," Yadav said. He said the BJP was resorting to theatrics to win elections. He said BJP should maintain the sanctity of constitutional bodies like the EC.
Later in the day, Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath held a press conference where he said the poll body would continue to perform its duty impartially, wasn't afraid and won't get cowed down. He said it wasn't the EC job to pick fights with politicians.
But Jaitley, who along with hundreds of BJP workers protested in Varanasi, was brutal in his assessment of the poll body. "Men in constitutional offices need to be bolder. Timid men can dwarf high offices," Jaitley said.
The BJP leader said EC was more "concerned what adjectives are used by whom" but has been out of its depth when it came to preventing malpractices like booth capturing. He said the EC by condoning Varanasi returning officer Pranjal Yadav's stand on "no-Modi rally in Varanasi city" has prevented Modi from his right to campaign in his constituency.
Jaitley asked the poll body to provide a level playing field to all candidates. "Rahul Gandhi can have a road show in Varanasi but Narendra Modi cannot have a rally. The security card is selectively used," he said. Gandhi is scheduled to hold a road show in Varanasi on May 10.
Jaitley disputed the Returning Officer's claim that permissions to four out of five events BJP had planned for Modi in Varanasi had been given. He said two of the approvals were for the landing of the helicopter in which Modi was travelling, once each in the city and in a rural area. Jaitley said the permissions, in any case, came very late in the day on Wednesday.
BJP had sought permissions for a Modi rally at Beniabagh, a meeting of Modi with 150 eminent citizens of Varanasi at a hotel and his participating in the Ganga Maha Aarti at Dashashwamedh Ghat. Apart from permission for the landing of the helicopter, the Returning Officer had also allowed Modi to address a public meeting at Rohaniya, a rural locality outside the city limits.
Permissions for the meeting with eminent citizens and participation in the Maha Aarti was denied citing security reasons. On Wednesday evening, Jaitley wrote to the Returning Officer withdrawing his party's requests to seek approvals to all events in Varanasi city. "Two hours after I withdrew all applications, he (Pranjal Yadav) announced to the media that he was allowing Shri Modi to meet 150 people. How very liberal," Jaitley said. The prayer at Ganga ghat was also allowed late Wednesday evening.
But the BJP wasn't happy. Jaitley said Modi's entire campaign in Varanasi city is restricted to a prayer at the Ganga Ghat and meeting 150 persons in a hotel. Permission wasn't given to Modi's Beniabagh public meeting for security reasons. The BJP, however, made Modi's visit to the BJP office in Varanasi city into a road show.
In Delhi, police issued prohibitory orders around the EC office and stopped the BJP protest 100 metres from the poll panel building. Naidu led a BJP delegation to submit a memorandum to Sampath demanding that Varanasi Returning Officer transferred immediately.