New Delhi, March 29: The BJP today sought the Election Commission’s immediate intervention against certain television ads allegedly making “false and slanderous” references to the Prime Minister.

In a letter to the chief election commissioner, the BJP said the ads had been put out by a private trust, but “the language of these advertisements and the subjects chosen are exactly similar to the press advertisements being issued by the Indian National Congress in leading national newspapers”.

BJP general secretary Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who sent the letter, asked the poll panel to direct the Sajhi Virasat Trust to pull out the ads being beamed on news channels.

“The issue of these advertisements by the Sajhi Virasat Trust is a thinly veiled attempt to circumvent the instructions of the Election Commission of India with regard to political advertisements on television.”

Two of the ads mentioned by Naqvi projected the “dissatisfaction of some persons with the state of affairs in the country”. But the BJP’s anger was directed at one alleging A.B. Vajpayee had been a British police “informer” and had squealed on his comrades after they were arrested for participating in a 1942 demonstration.

The incident took place in Vajpayee’s hometown Batheshwar, near Agra. According to official records with the National Archives, he was released from jail in 23 days after signing a confessional statement. His sympathisers said he was too young and naive to understand the implications of his action.

The ad spotlighted the statement and encircled Vajpayee’s signature to the tune of a patriotic number from a sixties’ Hindi film, Haqeeqat.

In the letter, Naqvi wrote: “Apart from being completely untrue, these allegations are unsubstantiated. They have been repeated time and again by the Congress party during the course of every election since 1977. It is also pertinent that these allegations have been repeatedly rejected by the people of India.”