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| POLL COMMISSION MESS | | Congress unhappy with CEC as he overruled Center on J&K elections | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 31: As the hostility continues between the Election Commission a new veiled countercharge has come against the Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalawami on taking the Congress by surprise when he announced to go ahead with assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
In his letter to the President of India, Gopalaswami had leveled a volley of allegations against Election Commissioner Navin Chawla squarely indicting him for favouring the Congress in deciding timing of elections in various states. In a countercharge, the Congress appears to have clearly taken side with Chawla as Gopalaswami went against its wishes atleast at two occasions.
The party indicated that Chawla would continue in his post. "He has been most impartial in his actions," said Digvijay Singh, AICC general secretary.
The Congress leaders were in a dilemma in reacting to the political drama, as rebuffing CEC or defending Chawla risked betraying a special party interest in the election officer under attack. So, while few were ready to speak, the view was that constitutional offices should not be politicised and guns were thus trained on BJP.
A cautious AICC did not drag Gopalaswami in its defence of Chawla as an "impartial" functionary but it has no love lost for the CEC, who is seen as an "LK Advani appointee". He is seen as the villain of the piece in party's loss in Karnataka, where he "misled" the Congress into early notification of delimitation, while he is seen as having tried to overrule the Centre on Kashmir.
On Saturday, Congress defended Chawla strongly and indicated that he would continue.
It was felt that removing doubts on elevation of Chawla by naming him as the next CEC would pre-empt a revival of BJP campaign that a "Congress partisan" should not take over the election watchdog.
The apprehension was expressed in suggestions made by Congress leader Salman Khurshed recently during the Lok Sabha preparations to party troubleshooter Pranab Mukherjee.
It was felt the Centre nominate a new Election Commissioner around now against the vacancy to be created by Gopalaswami's retirement and in the process also seal the issue of future CEC. Given that the post would fall vacant in the middle of humunguous Lok Sabha exercise and the model code of conduct, there was sufficient cover to name the new EC without the Centre being seen as "too anxious" to clinch Chawla's elevation.
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