‘Chawla is a Congress agent’

Navin Chawla, who took over as chief election commissioner (CEC), started his tenure with an attack from the BSP and the BJP, which expressed reservations over his impartiality.

UP chief minister Mayawati mounted a vicious attack against the Election Commission calling it “biased” and alleging that it was working against the BSP at the behest of opposition parties. She said Chawla a “Congress agent” and lambasted election commissioner SY Qureshi for acting against the BSP with vested interests.

“Before his retirement as CEC, N Gopalaswamy made serious allegations against Navin Chawla, and had also called him a ‘Congress agent’... he [Chawla] should have resigned at that time itself,” she said. “I am myself convinced about this... the EC’s action in Jaunpur proves this,” Mayawati said.

The CM was angry over the EC ordering transfer of three police officers of Jaunpur in connection with the death of a Dalit candidate, Bahadur Sonkar, there. The family of the deceased has charged BSP’s Jaunpur candidate and maifa Dhananjay Singh with Sonkar’s “murder”.

BJP vice-president Yashwant Sinha said, “I have seen the Chawla effect in my constituency [Hazaribagh] on April 16 when no security was provided to polling booths which were manned by ill-trained NCC cadets. There were no policemen.

BJP candidate from Saran Rajiv Pratap Rudy said the EC had not provided paramilitary forces in polling booths in Saran though the constituency was a sensitive one as re-polling had been ordered in all booths in 2004.

Incidentally, Chawla is the first CEC to take over in the midst of a Lok Sabha election.