NEW DELHI/PATNA, 8 May 2005 — The Election Commission was mired in a fresh controversy yesterday when federal Railway Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav demanded immediate resignation of Election Commissioners B.B. Tandon and N. Gopalaswamy, who were accused by a senior IAS official of having made every attempt to countermand the poll in Lalu’s Chhapra Lok Sabha constituency in Bihar last year.
“The Election Commission must be reconstituted and Tandon, Gopalaswamy must resign,” Yadav told a hurriedly called press conference where he distributed a letter said to be written by L.V. Saptharishi, who was special observer in Bihar during the Lok Sabha polls, to Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj.
The four-page letter with the allegations has been written by L.V. Saptrishi who was looking after the Chhapra poll and he later countermanded Lalu’s election last year in Chhapra. He has alleged that this was done under pressure from Election Commissioners B.B. Tandon and N. Gopalaswamy as well as the then union home minister and BJP leader L.K. Advani.
“My detractors including L.K. Advani did not like it. This letter from the observer to the law minister is self-explanatory. Two election commissioners hatched a conspiracy against me. Not only me, but the entire Yadav community has been humiliated. This letter bares all,” said Lalu. Belonging to West Bengal cadre, Saptarishi is at present director general of the Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART).
In view of the serious nature of accusations, the two must resign and the EC reconstituted so that the prestige of the august organization is not lowered, Lalu said alleging the commissioners had conspired to prevent him from entering Parliament.
“My conscience will not permit me to keep quiet and hence I am writing this letter to inform you that the appointment of Tandon as chief election commissioner and continuation of Gopalaswamy as election commissioner would be extremely undesirable in the interest of fairplay, justice and democracy and impartial conduct of future elections,” Saptarishi said in his letter.
There was no reaction from the election commission on the charges leveled by the official. Tandon is slated to take over as CEC on May 16. In the letter to Bharadwaj, Saptarishi said although nothing extraordinary or abnormal happened at Chhapra, where the then union Civil Aviation Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy of BJP had crossed swords with Lalu Prasad, every attempt was made by Tandon and Gopalaswamy to countermand the poll after listening to the “unreasonable demands” of L.K. Advani, Rudy and others.
