By Sushil Kutty
India has got a new Chief Election Commissioner. Sushil Chandra moved to the top post April 13, a Tuesday and notably ‘new year’ in the Hindu calendar. What’s striking is that in photographs, he looks like a 1960s Bollywood movie actor. One of those oily characters who come up with slick performances. The question is what kind of CEC will Sushil Chandra be? The point is, in the last nearly one decade, not one CEC has toed the people’s line, so to speak.
There have been only tame and game (tamed and gamed!) chief election commissioners eliciting the thought ‘what a waste of talent/authority?’ Sushil Chandra will serve till May 14, 2022. He is 63, and was appointed Election Commissioner in February 2019, just before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In the ensuing months from now on till he gives way to another tamed CEC, he will oversee polls in five states – Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur.
But that’s for later. Right now he’s got to see the finish of the West Bengal assembly elections, which has four more phases to go. And then the results for five states’ – Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Assam and West Bengal – assembly elections will be announced on May 2 this year. Needless to say, Sushil Chandra has been in the thick of things in his role as election commissioner, and he need not be reminded of how the Election Commission has been working ever since elections to these five states got underway.
‘Pathetic’ and ‘servile’ are two words that come to mind. Nobody has to tell Sushil Chandra of the statements being issued by political figures during these last few weeks, most of them BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. Of course, there is the shrill voice of Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, butting in with her own assertions. But there’s a difference. While PM Modi gets away with murder, so to speak, Mamata is the one who gets hung to the rafters for allegedly having busted the Model Code of Conduct!
As if ‘MCC’ is the Marylebone Cricket Club for the BJP, and Modi; and the Election Commission’s Model Code of Conduct for the TMC, and Mamata Banerjee. The Prime Minister and his minions, such as Nitin Gadkari for one and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for another, can buck any and every model conduct provision, but not Banerjee. There are so many of the pronouncements that Modi has been making and there’s not a whimper from the Election Commission.
Will Sushil Chandra be different from his predecessor? Most observers of the “scene” will laugh at the suggestion that Chandra will show spine. If he had one, he would have revealed it long ago, ever since he’s been in the Election Commission. But in his defence, he wasn’t CEC to throw his weight around, do a Seshan! Then again, before he became one of the trio in the EC, he was chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), and CBDT doesn’t usually breed lions!
Chandra arrives at the helm even as the election body is being hotly confronted for being sickeningly partial to the Bharatiya Janata Party, and for being extremely harsh to Mamata Banerjee – one set of rules for the TMC; and another, more benign, set for the BJP. Like it is said, Prime Minister Modi can holler anything from the rooftop and the EC would be deaf and dumb. But Mamata Banerjee says something a little out of line, and it’s heard loud and clear. The EC hauls her up and bans her like she’s a loudspeaker on a minaret!
Question: What does CEC Sushil Chandra think of the 24-hour ban handed out to Mamata Banerjee by the outgoing CEC? Equally, if not more, important what does he think of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s transgressions of the MCC? Early April, Modi had without batting an eyelid said that if the BJP comes to power in West Bengal, the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi will be passed in the very first cabinet meeting, adding that farmers of West Bengal will not only start getting the benefits of the scheme, but also the “backlog of Rs 18,000.”
Isn’t or wasn’t that a clear violation of the Model Code of Conduct? Wasn’t it the job of the CEC and Election Commission to immediately point it out to an ignorant Prime Minister that he had violated the code and should be rightly told in no uncertain terms that he’s banned from campaigning for so and so hours, beginning right now? Ah, nobody in the Election Commission had the cat’s guts to shake up Mr. Modi. And that included Mr. Sushil Chandra, the one with a slick hairdo!
Sushil Chandra had overseen the CBDT’s ‘Operation Clean Money’ launched in 2017 to curb illegal wealth and black money. It’s clear as daylight that he didn’t succeed in the endeavour, black money and illegal wealth continue to be the hallmark as we all know. But, here’s another chance to redeem. Will CEC Sushil Chandra accept the challenge, and read out the riot act to Prime Minister Narendra Modi & Co., during the remaining weeks of the West Bengal elections as far as the MCC is concerned?
Point is, if Mamata Banerjee bucked the model code when she asked Muslims not to “waste” their votes, Modi by keeping on mentioning Mamata’s transgressions has been cleverly signaling to the majority community not to waste their votes! Even otherwise, Modi and BJP have with the use of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and other Hindu-slogans trying to attract a relevant section of the electorate. The Election Commission has steadfastly ignored Modi’s transgressions and from all indications nothing’s gonna change with Sushil Chandra at the helm.
Those sort of miracles do not happen with Modi and Amit Shah at the helm. Doesn’t matter how defiant Mamata Banerjee is and will be; whether she rejects the EC’s elections or not, nothing will matter. Polarizing references like “mini-Pakistan” from Hindutva tongues have been adopted by the Election Commission as legit lexicon. If outgoing CEC Sunil Arora could not make a difference, incoming CEC Sushil Chandra seems no different. Both are birds of the same feather! (IPA Service)