Congress May Call For Mid Term Poll

[ramana]

The Election Commission observer has submitted his report to the EC on the last elctions to Lok Sabha. He thinks the results should be countermanded. hopefully the opposition can help publicize them and let the chips fall where they may.

From Statesman, 10 June 2005

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Elections to most of the 42 seats in last year’s Lok Sabha poll in West Bengal should have been countermanded by the Election Commission of India. Almost the entire exercise for the 14th Lok Sabha poll in West Bengal was a “farce”. The ruling CPI-M’s belligerent behaviour and the obstacles put up by key figures in the state administration came in the way of creating a level playing field for holding a free and fair poll in the state.

The appointment of a tough, Bengali-speaking IAS officer from outside West Bengal as the Chief Electoral Officer of the state may in the long run go a long way in holding free and fair elections in the state. These are some of the observations from an “explosive final” report that the special election observer for West Bengal, Afzal Amanullah, had submitted to the Chief Election Commissioner, TS Krishnamurthy, in May last year. But it is yet to see the light of day. The whereabouts of the report are not known to anyone in the Election Commission.  This and other reports of poll observers recount, hitherto unknown,f dramatic events which at one time last year threatened to stall the entire poll process in West Bengal.
<b>The CPI-M central leadership had mounted tremendous pressure on Mr Krishnamurthy and the two Election Commissioners BB Tandon and N Gopalaswamy not to make public not only the final report of Mr Amanullah but also the 87 other reports of his and about 200-odd poll observers specially sent to the state by the EC to oversee the Lok Sabha poll. </b>
The Marxist leadership was afraid that if these reports were made public, it would seriously compromise the party’s public image, its credibility and claim of being the “true and only spokesman” of the democratically minded people of the state. The reports give graphic and documented accounts of booth-wise terror and various administrative and electoral malpractices indulged in mostly by the ruling CPI-M and the election staff to ensure that the Left Front bagged 35 of the 42 seats.
<b>But what made the Marxists more scared about the “explosive final report” and forced Mr Krishnamurthy, Mr Tandon and Mr Gopalaswamy to keep it under “permanent wraps” was Mr Amanullah’s pathbreaking recommendations for ensuring free and fair poll in West Bengal. His report and those of others say that until these recommendations are followed in letter and spirit, holding free and fair polls in the state would be “impossible”. </b>

Mr Amanullah is an intrepid IAS officer of the Bihar cadre whose integrity and excellent service record are a source of envy for his service colleagues and who is currently a Joint Secretary at the Centre. He was sent as a special observer to West Bengal in March last year to oversee the proper conduct of the Lok Sabha election. Serious complaints by human rights groups and election watchdogs regarding poll-related Marxist terror and malpractices had forced the CEC to take the unprecedented step of despatching him to West Bengal.
Bihar was the only other state where also, because of similar complaints to the CEC, a special observer had been sent.
Mr Amanullah’s selection was because of his excellent track record during the 2002 Jammu and Kashmir Assembly election when, despite threats from militants and jihadi groups from Pakistan, he succeeded in holding free and peaceful voting in the most volatile areas such as Kupwara by ensuring a large turnout of genuine voters at polling centres.
The measures adopted by him were foolproof. This restored the faith of the ordinary Kashmiri voters’ in the electoral process which had earlier been eroded because of rampant rigging methods resorted to by Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference.
Mr Amanullah earned the CPI-M’s wrath when he transferred the District Superintendents of Police of Nadia and North 24-Parganas for their pronouncedly pro-CPI-M bias. In retaliation, the CPI-M Politburo member, Biman Bose, threatened to “throw the election observers out by the scruff of their neck”.
Stung by the humiliation, Mr Amanullah informed the CEC that it would not be possible for him to conduct the poll process. Sensing trouble, the CPI-M central leadership met the CEC and apologised. It instructed Mr Bose to tender a “wishy-washy” apology.
<b>The “explosive final report” and other reports give countless documented examples of not only rigging but also telltale accounts of how the ruling Marxists terrorise the Opposition and voters to ensure outright victory for themselves. Detailed references are given of how white shrouds and white sarees (symbol of Hindu widowhood) are sent to those local Muslim and Hindu Opposition activists and leaders who refuse to buckle under the Marxist pressure before the election. Instances are given of how state bureaucrats acting on “orders from the top” harass the Opposition to ensure Marxist victory. </b>

<b>For example, an IPS officer, who was the Superintendent of Police of a bordering district, had earned so much notoriety for his Marxist partisanship that he had to be told that if he did not mend his ways he would be transferred from the district. </b>Piles of complaints had been received from various professional bodies and leading citizens of the district that this officer was helping the Marxists wrest the district’s three parliamentary seats by selectively detaining Opposition activists without levelling any specific charges against them.
The officer “cried and begged” of the special observer not to transfer him as that would be construed as a “black mark” in his service record and which would “ruin” his career. Pleading his helplessness, he said that he was being forced to carry out the orders of his political bosses as otherwise he would be denied swift promotion and a coveted posting.
<b>“Actually, I want to get out of Bengal at the earliest. Since I am from Uttar Pradesh, I am keen to serve the central Intelligence Bureau and other Central agencies in Delhi” was the officer’s “honest confession” mentioned in one of the reports. </b>
The reports say that the Central observer felt “cheated” by the trickery that some senior bureaucrats resorted to for scuttling his plan to ban the use of motorbikes immediately before, during and after the elections. Reports of armed Marxist motorbike brigades spreading panic among voters in rural areas were pouring in from poll observers.
But the wording of the Press note, issued on behalf of the state election office on the use of motorbikes, was such that his original plan for ban got defeated.
The reports say that if elections in the state have to be free and fair, one of the conditions is that the state chief electoral officer must be from outside the state. And he should either be a Bengali or Bengali-knowing with an unblemished service record. This is because many of the recent CEOs, who all belong to the Bengal cadre of the IAS, have been unable to withstand the pulls and pressures brought to bear on them by their ministers and the ruling party bigwigs.
<b>To curry favour with the ruling party, some of them even refused to redress the serious and genuine complaints of voters and also of the Opposition. Later, these officers were given prized postings as Principal Secretary to the commerce and industry department or made head of Central government undertakings with lot of scope for foreign travel. The unpublished reports also want “proper and thorough scrutiny” of the “heavily padded” electoral rolls which are “heavily weighed” in the CPI-M and Left Front’s favour.</b>
They also recommend that all the polling and security personnel needed for conducting the poll should be brought from outside the state as was done in the case of Kashmir.
Justifying the point, the reports say that “all the state government employees’ unions and officers’ associations are so highly politicised that it is absurd to expect their members to stay neutral during elections. And the fact of the matter is that they don’t”. The reports quote “clarion calls” given by the leaders of CPI-M-controlled unions of policemen and even Home Guards before the election urging their members to “ensure our party and Front’s victory at any cost”. “How can such elections be free and fair,” asks one report.
The reports say that because of the “peculiar and disturbing situation” obtaining in West Bengal, the poll process should start a year ahead of the scheduled poll date. Central security forces and those brought from other states should be deployed in sensitive areas two to three months ahead of election so that voters who are terrorised gain the confidence to vote freely. “These forces should not be withdrawn from the state at least three months after the elections so that no harm comes to those who have not voted for the Marxists and their allies.”
The reports have also said that “voting should not be allowed to start until Central forces have been deployed in all booths”. “This is also a must for free and fair election”. The electronic voting machines, according to the reports, are not suited to Bengal as they help opponents to find out with pin-point accuracy which voter has voted for whom. “The old method of mixing ballot papers before counting is ideal for Bengal and should be reconsidered for restoration”.

(The author Manash Ghosh is the Editor, Dainik Statesman.)

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