By Girish Nikam
A couple of weeks back when The Hindu broke the controversy about the bickering in the Election Commission between the Chief Election Commissioner N.Gopalaswami and his colleague, Election Commissioner, Navin Chawla, all hell seemed to have broken loose, just on the eve of elections.

The media and the polity as well as the legal fraternity understandably got into a frenzy over the letters written by the CEC to the President seeking the removal of Chawla. That the CEC had gone ahead and made this extra-ordinarily controversial suggestion just on the eve of him relinquishing office (he is to retire on Apr.20) only added to the concern. But what was most disconcerting was that the elections to the Lok Sabha is around the corner and Chawla is all set to take over as the CEC, and Gopalaswami’s missive is bound to vitiate the process.

So what was the intention of the man with the prominent caste mark on his forehead? Was it as innocent as he made it out to be—that he was only doing what he thought was right? Or was there a deeper intention? Even if one has to give the deeply religious and Vedas-aficionado the benefit of doubt, one cannot but wonder how as a seasoned bureaucrat he did not realise the waves he would cause. Or was his intention to cause a wave before retiring peacefully in his native Chennai and get buried under the Vedas and Sanskrit scholarship? If so, why?

Did he really think that he had the authority to make such a suggestion? Remember many legal hawks were convinced that he had no authority unless the President sought his opinion, though some felt that the Supreme Court had somewhere made some hint about him having the powers. It is typical legalese of those legal hawks who will find a hope in the most hopeless scenario.

Also did he really think that in the constitutional scheme of things he was superior to the other two ECs, and that he had the power to get them sacked? Imagine if this is the case, every few years, if not more often, you would have CECs and ECs at loggerheads and all that we will be hearing from the Nirvachan Sadan will be battle cries between them.

As far as the issue of Navin Chawla and his fairness or un-biased-ness is concerned, he certainly stands at a disadvantage in the perception game. Having been an acolyte of Sanjay Gandhi in the emergency (remember Jagmohan, the former BJP Cabinet Minister was also an acolyte of Sanjay) he seems to stand condemned forever. Of course no such problem with Jagmohan, as he redeemed himself abandoning Congress and the Gandhi family and finding new political masters and party.

The fact of the matter however is that Chawla kept close contact with the Gandhi family, went on to do various things in his tenure in the IAS, irritated some of his political bosses no end, flaunting his proximity with 10, Janpath and finally ending up with the plum sinecure.

Well, the other fact of the matter is that every appointee to the post of the Election Commission, including T.N.Seshan, the “Alsatian” of them all, also had been handpicked by the respective governments for being perceived as being favourable to it. Even Gopalaswamy was appointed because he worked closely with then Home Minister L.K.Advani and was his Home secretary and was considered the right man to be placed for their own political benefit, directly or indirectly.

So for any political party or anyone for that matter to act as if all other appointees had come through the fairness grill and only Chawla was handpicked out of turn, are only creating an illusion for themselves. It is another matter that most of those handpicked by different administrations have acted rather independently and especially since the Seshan era, most have performed by and large fairly, and have enhanced the reputation of the Commission across the world.

The whole idea of making it a three-member commission was to ensure the necessary checks and balances in the system, and also for a healthy democratic functioning within the commission. For Gopalaswamy to think that all the members of the Commission should have similar opinion always is being completely undemocratic. He should know better that the Commission has fortified itself pretty well, not to be over-ridden by one Commissioner, even is he is the CEC.

Meanwhile in the specific case of Karnataka elections, the CEC cribs that Chawla was in favour of postponing the elections, and he concludes since this was what Congress wanted and so he was biased. What the CEC forgets is that many many people not associated with the Congress, including this columnist, had raised concern about cutting short the delimitation process, and this concern was not unjustified as we saw later how in many constituencies of Karnataka, the voters list was faulty. This was just because Gopalaswami suddenly decided to cut short the process, after having gone on record that the process would take four to six months. But he managed to get through with his short-cut process, because the other Commissioner, S.Y.Qureshi, also a UPA appointee backed him.

Could his action not have been construed as being pro-BJP, since it did help the BJP in the end? But the fact was that no political party openly accused him of that, though there were a lot of murmurs in private. However, BJP has never thought it fit to keep its suspicions and conspiracy theories, when it comes to constitutional bodies, private. It has always tried to attack the EC, when it perceived (wrongly most of the times), that they were against it. Remember Lyngdoh?

However, what has been gratifying in the last week is that the BJP seems to have turned a new leaf. After creating much song and dance over the Gopalaswami bombshell, it has suddenly gone silent. At its Nagpur National Executive, not a word was uttered about the controversy and no statements were made. Chawla was not even mentioned even in private briefings. Have they finally realized that the constitutional bodies have to be handled with much more care than the cavalier manner that they have displayed so far? One hopes so.

But that doesn’t mean that the debate about the need for reforms in the way the Election Commissioners are appointed should not go on. Gopalaswami has indeed made valuable suggestions regarding that. His and many others’ suggestion that the process should not be the sole prerogative of the Government in power, and others like the Leaders of Opposition and Vice President should be involved carries a lot of weight. And one hopes that such a broad-based selection process is adopted to avoid such controversies in future. But the moot point is, would Gopalaswami have been appointed at all, if the process had not been what it was when he was appointed!