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Election Commission : Fresh controversy over its role in Bihar polls |
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The Election Commission role during last year’s Lok Sabha elections, especially in Bihar, has been mired in controversy following charges by L.V. Saptharishi, Special Observer for Bihar for the Lok Sabha elections, that two of the three Election Commissioners made what he called every attempt to have the polling in Chapra countermanded. In a representation to the Law Minister, Saptharishi alleged that the two Elections Commissioners B.B. Tandon and N. Gopalaswami adopted this attitude after listening to what he called the unreasonable demands of BJP leader and then Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani and then Civil Aviation Minister Rajeev Pratap Rudy. Rudy was the BJP candidate in Chapra and was facing RJD leader and former Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav in the constituency. After repolling took place in the whole of the constituency, Lalu Prasad Yadav defeated Rudy among others.
Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, releasing copies of Saptharishi’s four-page letter addressed to the Law Minister demanded the resignation of the Election Commissioners named in the complaint and reconstitution of the Election Commission in what he called the greater interest of democracy. Yadav said the BJP, the RSS and the VHP had “conspired” to prevent him from entering the Lok Sabha. He regretted that a constitutional authority had been “politicised” and “demolished” for “petty political interests”. He said it would not be in the interest of democracy to allow such persons with “communal ideologies” to continue in such high posts, which called for probity and uprightness.
Quoting the letter, Yadav said it was an example of how a section of the elite sought to deprive Dalits and backward classes of their rights. He said he would meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, urging him to reconsider the appointment of Tandon as the Chief Election Commissioner from May 15. He demanded that T.S. Krishnamurthy, CEC, make public Saptharishi’s report, which held that there was no abnormal occurrence in Chapra during the polling. Until the inquiry into Saptharishi’s allegations was completed, the two Commissioners should dissociate themselves from their posts.
While the Election Commission is yet to come out officially on the charges made by Saptharishi, the Bharatiya Janata Party has described them as politically motivated. The party pointed out that Saptharishi is now working as Director General of the Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology, CAPART, an agency under a ministry headed by RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh. BJP national vice-president Sushil Kumar Modi said in New Delhi, “It appears that L.V. Saptharishi has done this at someone’s behest or else why should he have kept silent for almost a year. Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who was the BJP candidate in Chapra, said it was for the Election Commission to come out with details of the reports based on which it had ordered a repoll. Rudy asked how Saptharishi could suggest that the election was peaceful when 10 persons were killed on the polling day and the entire media reported booth capturing. The Election Commission would have had its own understanding of the situation based on facts and figures before ordering the repoll. Rudy said it appeared the episode was aimed at achieving a “post-retirement resettlement”.
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