LF Confers Full Faith In The Neutrality Of The EC

B Prasant     

 THE CPI(M) will ask the Election Commission why three officers were removed from their present posting without showing any cause.  Making no secret of his annoyance, former chief minister and veteran leader of the CPI(M), Jyoti Basu that both the Bengal Left Front government and the people of Bengal must know the reasons why the officers were transferred.  The officers must be told about their 'offence' that had sparked off the transfer bid.  "Even a condemned man gets to know why he is facing the extreme of punishments," was how Basu would put it.

Reading out from a statement before the media at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan on March 19, Basu said that the CPI(M) "has full confidence in the EC and it hopes that the EC shall not allow itself to be influenced by interested quarters."  In any case, declared Basu responding to a nagging query by a reporter, "Bengal Left Front shall romp home victorious come the Lok Sabha polls."  Anil Biswas was present at the press conference, as was state secretariat member of the Bengal unit of the Party, Mridul De.

Earlier on March 18, a Deputy Election Commissioner had told the media at the capital that three officers were being shifted out of election duties: the Superintendents of Nadia and north 24 Parganas, and the DIG Maldah Range. No reasons were shown.  One recalls that when the CEC had come to this state on  March 17, he had told the media that several cases of complaint had been lodged in the name of 'some officers.'  Enquiries, he said, would be made about these complaints.

In addition, referring to 'special arrangements' for Bengal, he had said that Bengali-speaking government employees from the neighbouring states would be utilised for election work in Bengal.  On going back to Delhi, he ordered the transfer of three officers and he would not show any reasons why.

In his statement, Basu also said that over the past 27 years, the state of Bengal "has acquired a special status and honour as for the holding of free and fair elections are concerned."  The Election Commission itself has, repeatedly, praised Bengal for this achievement.  "We do believe," said Basu, the fourteenth Lok Sabha polls shall see this glorious record of Bengal kept untainted."  If proper procedures are initiated, free, and fair elections could be held, indeed, all over the country.

Basu later clarified to say that under Article 311 of the Indian Constitution, there was a provision for removing officials without showing cause for the action, but that after 1977, the Article has never been used in this state by the EC.

Elsewhere, the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Bengal himself expressed surprise at the transfer order since he had been kept completely in the dark over the sensitive issue.  He said that he had merely received an intimation post facto regarding the transfers.  He also said that his office has received complaints against the Kolkata mayor, Subrata Mukherjee, in the Kolkata north-west constituency from which he is running as the Trinamul Congress candidate. They are being looked properly into, he said.

In the meanwhile, convening in an emergency meeting at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan on March 20, the Bengal Left Front passed a unanimous resolution in this regard.  It pointed out that it would not be justified "if any steps are initiated by the Election Commission with regard to the law-and-order situation in Bengal on the basis of motivated reports."  The Left Front hoped that the Election Commission "shall continue to maintain its independence and shall keep on working in a strictly impartial manner."

Responding to questions from the media persons, Left Front chairman, Biman Basu said that the people of Bengal had had the experience, and quite thoroughly too, of persons like CEC Seshan, earlier to that, Dharam Vir, the notorious Bengal governor.  Basu also said that notwithstanding what did happen or did not, there was no way anything or anybody could prevent elections being held freely and fairly in Bengal for this was a challenge to the people of Bengal, the forward post of democracy of the country.

Biman Basu pointed out that the Election Commission would do nothing that would finally serve to dent the moral and principled stand of the state administration.  The state LF government has already gone through the process of transferring officers who were due for transfer and 'we expect the Election Commission not to bow low before any source or sources and to function in an independent manner.'  The same standards should be applicable everywhere in the country, the LF chairman pointed out.

In the meanwhile, the Trinamul Congress-BJP combine expressed “partial satisfaction” at the “way the Election Commission has been handling things in Bengal.”   Biman Basu said, responding to a question from the media that the Election Commission could only fully satisfy the Trinamul Congress-BJP by bringing in electoral personnel perhaps from the UN.