Polls 2012: CEC favours report card for elected candidates

SY Quraishi, the suave but firm chief election commissioner, has passionately taken up the cause of a record voter turn out in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Manipur and Uttrakhand. As each of his predecessors has a landmark achievement, so has he as he will go down in the history of India doing away with the disenchantment among the youth, especially young women against polling for their representatives’ being not accountable.

This time the electioneering was sans any mishap and clean. He shares his views with Firoz Bakht Ahmed in an exclusive interview for DNA, Mumbai.

Q: How is it that during the just concluded elections, we have seen a record number of voters?
A: Well, my achievement is the record number of voters — especially young men and women. I found that the young (18-20) year youth were the major non-voters owing to ignorance about voting rules and their disillusion that the elected representatives aren’t accountable as per their expectations.

Q: What’s your assessment of the heavy turnout of voters this time?
A: Frankly speaking, for the first time in my life, I’ve seen such a huge voter turnout. For all of us including the poll pundits and especially, the politicians, it’s very tricky. Truth is that we had worked for it since December last and on January 25, designated as National Voters Day, we enrolled 5.3 million voters on a single day.

Q: Did you feel threatened when Khurshid challenged EC’s authority after you reprimanded him?
A: Salman’s a good friend but when we are holding offices as such, our first loyalty is to our work. It was an unseemly as himself, a custodian of law in the ministry, the law minister went around throwing weight about reservation. The reprimand had to be there to protect the dignity of the EC.

Q: Are you thinking of a law to question the continuation of a candidate, who after having won, doesn’t do work?
A: Of course, it would be interesting to assess the accountability report card of the elected candidate after say two years and if found dissatisfactory or not within the set parameters, his/her seat must go to the nearest candidate who had lost. This way, there won’t be any corruption.

Q: What do you think about exit polls?
A: For me, it’s a comical term and exit polls make their exit in no time! Of course, for entertainment, these make a good pastime.