ECI is biased under Navin, says BJP

Vijay Deo Jha Ranchi Saturday, June 6, 2009

The State BJP president, Raghuwar Das, referred Navin Chawla as the chief election agent of the Congress and the UPA; rather than the Chief Election Commissioner of India.

What provoked Das against Chawla is the decision of the Commission to conduct elections of two RS seats in Jharkhand on June 20, with two separate ballots without preferential system.

Intending a pitch battle against the UPA and the commission Das announced: “Strategy against the decision will be formulated in a high level meeting of the BJP on Saturday.”

Nevertheless, Das did not disclose whether it will be a political battle or a legal battle nor the party State spokesperson Sanjay Seth said any thing about this. “It will be for the first time in the history of India that elections of two RS seats that fell vacant at the same time are conducted with two separate ballots. Chawla has been doing it to ensure the victory of the UPA for both of the seats,” Das said it in his belligerent podium talk with the media at the party headquarter on Friday.

The sources in the party, however, said that the party might explore legal option to slap on the face of the Commission which has adamant to establish bad precedence Jharkhand. What Das told was the repetition of the old complains that he admitted.

“What I am stating today against Chawla was stated by the BJP in the past and by the former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami who found his role quite dubious.”

The BJP once again blamed Chawla for degrading the impartiality of the Election Commission and Das quoted the new method of RS elections in Jharkhand as an example to this. The BJP fears the election will encourage horse trading. “The UPA deliberately chose to keep the assembly under suspended animation to win RS seats.

"It will encourage horse trading since the party whip will not be effective on the MLAs to follow the party line,” Das said. Das blamed commission for defying the established norms. He said, “It never happened in democratic history of the country where RS election of more than one seats could have been held with two separate ballot system.”

The reason of BJP’s anxiety over the decision is self explained. In this election having no provision of second priority vote it will be quite difficult for the NDA combine to retain even one seat. The BJP has refused to buy the argument that both RS seats in Jharkhand fell vacant at two different times and the decision of the Commission was biased.

“Both the seats fell vacant within a gap of one month. Could not Chawla wait for some days to issue election notification for both seats under ‘preferential system?’ Das lashed.

Whether the battle against the Commission will pay the BJP the dividend it requires; it will be known today. But the contenders for tickets have started intense lobbying. The election committee of the party will sit to discuss the name of candidates today. The sources in the party said that besides former RS MP Ajay Maru and Devdas Apte, senior party leader Om Singh and Shekhar Agrawal are vying for the ticket.

“Some more names might come out of the political recycle bin and you can notice that despite the chances to win election are quite low the numbers of contenders are quite high,” an officer bearer of the party said.