Haryana Vidhan Sabha Elections and issue of NOTA

(Our position on the undemocratic behaviour of Haryana State Committee of NBS)

The District Unit(Sirsa) of Naujawan Bharat Sabha had called for the extended meeting of district committee to frame its plan ahead of Haryana Vidhan Sabha elections. It was decided upon in the meeting that exposure campaign of various ruling class parties will be carried out during the elections and people will be appealed to reject the candidates of ruling class parties and opt for NOTA. On the call of district committee, this campaign was carried out in the four constituencies of Sirsa, namely Rania, Ellenabad, Kalianwali and Dabwali.

But during this period, Haryana State Committee of Naujawan Bharat Sabha issued an irresponsible statement in which, citing NBS constitution and Manifesto, it was said that it does not advocate the support to any political party, to call for its boycott or to push for NOTA button. At that time, owing to our involvement in various campaigns, like exposure campaign in elections, mother language campaign and some other organisational involvements, we could not present our point of view on this issue that time. We want to clarify now on this important issue. We believe that to give such a call by Haryana State Committee in the midst of the campaign being carried out by District Committee Sirsa is misleading, undemocratic and violation of organisational principles.

This statement was issued in original by Haryana State Committee. But it was not even passed in any meeting of the State Committee, because PAVEL from Sirsa is also a member of Haryana State Committee and he was not given any invitation for such a meeting. Even more, the State Committee didn’t give any chance to Sirsa District Committee to clarify its stance on the issue. If the State Committee had any objection to the decision of Sirsa District Committee, then an emergency meeting of State Committee should have been called for, whereby the issue should have been resolved in the State Committee meeting and Sirsa District Committee would also have been given the chance to present their case. But no such attempt was made and without holding a meeting of Haryana State Committee, such public statements were issued against Sirsa District Committee. It has been more than three years since the formation of Haryana State Committee in 2016 but till now only two meetings have been held of the State Committee. To issue such misleading statement without holding the State Committee meeting is sheer arbitrariness and undemocratic and should be categorised as an attempt to torpedo the campaign being carried in the Sirsa area. 

The 7th clause of the NBS Constitution and its manifesto is not a negation of the call to NOTA. The State Committee didn’t call upon its meeting before Haryana Vidhan Sabha elections to prepare a plan about the elections even though at such a time the entire state was broiling with political atmosphere but at such a time the Haryana State Committee didn’t give clearcut directions to its cadres. Therefore, in the absence of any clearcut defined direction by  the State Committee, the Sirsa District Committee called upon its extended meeting on its own initiative and decided to run exposure campaign during these parliamentary elections. 

The behaviour of Haryana State Committee of NBS is completely authoritarian and undemocratic and an attempt to impose a particular Politics on the entire organisation. The manifesto and constitution of NBS does not allow those comrades, holding positions in the organisation, to contest parliamentary elections representing any political party. But bypassing the NBS manifesto and the constitution, even Central Committee members of NBS directly participated as contestants of political parties in the parliamentary elections. Also, NBS’s manifesto and constitution does not support the joint activities with any political party. But these comrades have been time and again violating this principle and participating in joint activities with a particular political party. What approach should be taken by NBS on the above issues is a matter that comes under the jurisdiction of Central Council(CC). But the meetings of Central Council have been time and again postponed citing one or the other reason. In the last meeting of CC, comrades from UP had taken the responsibility to host the next meeting. But owing to their particular circumstances they expressed inability to host the meeting after which the national president of NBS took the responsibility of finalising the host for meeting. But till now there has been no meeting of CC during which matters pertaining to these issues and also long pending matters related to difference in Mass Work were to be discussed. The meeting of CC, supposed to be held every six months constitutionally, has not been held for over a year now. Since national conference of NBS, held in 2014, there have been only four meetings of CC till now. But these comrades have continuously violated the constitution of NBS and matters pertaining to unresolved issues. This is our clear cut understanding that to display such approach without appropriate constitutional amendment is a negation of organisational principles, a negation of Mass Line and completely undemocratic.

Expressing the above objections, we declare the approach held by Haryana State Committee against District Committee of Sirsa to be totally undemocratic and authoritarian.

Released

Pavel, Haryana State Committee member

Chhinderpal, National General Secretary

Naujawan Bharat Sabha.