OUR BUREAU New Delhi

The BJP on Tuesday accused the UPA Government of conspiring to give control of the elections code of conduct to courts to make the Election Commission " toothless" and the code ineffective, as it would take 10 years for courts to decide on the violations.

Senior leader Arun Jaitley told a Press conference that a leaked agenda note of the Group of Ministers meeting on Wednesday talks of making the code statutory.

It is the senior ministers and star leaders of the Congress who are serial offenders of the code.

Hence they want to puncture it instead of accepting that the Election Commission is playing the exemplary role of instilling discipline in elections, he said.

" Governance of the elections, which includes enforcement of the code, should remain with the Election Commission. Courts can't be given powers to regulate the political parties," Jaitley said, adding that the UPA government is bent upon destroying the institutions but it won't be able to pass the legislation to curb the ECs powers.

He also disagreed with the Congress leaders'contention that the code is not enforceable since it is non- statutory, pointing out that though non- statutory, it has been formulated under the Constitutional powers of the Election Commission.

Jaitley also quoted the Supreme Court upholding the ECs powers on he ground that Article 324 is the reservoir of all judicial residuary powers not specified under a specific law. The Apex Court had made it clear that if there is no specific law, the executive jurisdiction of the Election Commission will prevail, he added.