NEW DELHI: Supreme Court expressed concern on Tuesday over the encouragement given to regionalism by political parties to seek votes and said this poses as much danger to the unity and integrity of India as the promotion of communal divide in society.“Regional parties openly promote regionalism and seek votes during elections. Is this not against the unity and integrity of the country?” a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi asked while declining to entertain a petition seeking cancellation of the registration of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen. It said it would not single out any one political party when many were indulging in communalism.

“No doubt the petition raises an important issue. But this can only be gone into when a neutral petition is filed without accusing a single party,” the bench said and gave liberty to the petitioner to file a neutral petition raising the larger issues relating to electoral reforms.However, it said a conjoint reading of the clauses of the AIMIM’s constitution does not show there is anything which runs contrary to the Constitution of India. “If a religious law is protected by the Constitution, then a political party has the right to propagate that,” the court said.It said if a candidate of a party, which conforms to the standards set by the Constitution and Representation of the People Act, seeks votes in the name of religion, then s/he is liable for disqualification.‘AIMIM’s constitution against secularism’For petitioner Tirupati Narasimha Murari, advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain said AIMIM’s constitution advocates the cause of the Muslim community alone and has the objective of promotion of Islamic education, commitment to Sharia law, formation of Majlis Shura and prioritisation of employment, education and economic welfare of the Muslim community. “This is against secularism, the basic tenet of the Indian Constitution,” he said. As against this, he argued, the Election Commission would refuse to register a political party with a Hindu name and a constitution that espouses the cause of Hindus and promotes Vedic education. The bench disagreed and said, “If the EC refuses to register such a party, then there are forums to challenge the EC decision.”