New Delhi, Aug 08: Chief Election Commissioner James Lyngdoh and his two fellow Election Commissioners, T S Krishnamurthy and B B Tandon, are leaving for Ahmedabad on Thursday night for a two-day visit to review Assembly poll preparedness in the state. They will spend Friday in Ahmedabad and Saturday in Vadodara, the two cities that were affected the most in the long spell of communal violence.

The aim of the unusual visit — it is extremely rare for all three commissioners to together go to a state for an inspection — is to assess for themselves the situation and how ready the poll machinery is to conduct free and fair elections, says the Election Commission (EC) secretariat here.

The decision for this step comes after more than a fortnight of a resolute refusal by the EC (the assembly was abruptly dissolved by chief minister Narendra Modi on July 19) to commit itself to urgent pleas from state administration and the BJP national leadership for holding early elections. In that period, Lyngdoh and his colleagues have been hearing, without comment, delegations pleading the case for and against a quick poll. Modi supporters have been telling it to stick to the norm for a poll within six months of an assembly’s dissolution, which would mean one by October at the latest. But other political parties as well as private groups have been vociferously opposed to an early poll, saying that the riot-hit state is nowhere near normalcy, especially with regard to the rehabilitation of the victims.
The EC has indicated that it is not pleased at attempts to hustle it into a quick poll in Gujarat. It views this as an unwanted distraction. Its overwhelming priority from the start of this year has been to organise a proper poll to the Jammu and Kashmir assembly, which has to be done before mid-October. Lyngdoh is very conscious of the EC’s tarnished reputation regarding the impartiality of past J&K polls and is extremely keen to not have this sort of history repeat itself. He and the other two commissioners do not want the Gujarat polls linked with those in J&K, for which they have just directed a four-phase election. The EC firmly believes choosing a date for Gujarat is entirely within its own judgment, without being bound by the calendar if it deems the situation on the ground warrants any delay. On the other hand, it is also against any delay in constituting a new assembly when the old one has ceased to exist.
Bureau Report