IAS man slams Tandon again: Not over Chhapra now, but caste remarks

A day after his letter to Law Minister H R Bhardwaj, faulting the Election Commission decision to countermand Lok Sabha elections in Chhapra...

A day after his letter to Law Minister H R Bhardwaj, faulting the Election Commission decision to countermand Lok Sabha elections in Chhapra last year, sparked a furore, IAS officer and former Bihar poll observer L V Saptarishi today added a ‘‘casteist’’ twist to the controversy.

Saptarishi told reporters today that he had never challenged the Commission’s ‘‘decision’’ but only raised questions about certain ‘‘casteist remarks’’ allegedly made by Election Commissioners B B Tandon and N Gopalaswami during a discussion with him.

According to Saptarishi, Tandon made the remarks at a meeting of the commission here last May where he was called to submit his report on the Chhapra elections.

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The Election Commission, meanwhile, said after an emergency meeting today that it was below its dignity to react to ‘‘scurrilous and baseless’’ allegations.

Saptarishi said Tandon first asked him who the Chhapra SP was. ‘‘I (Saptarishi) said he is some Yadav…. may be, from Bihar or UP. Then Tandon reacted… No matter where he is from, all Yadavs are the same,’’ said Saptarishi, a 1969 West Bengal cadre officer.

Saptarishi claimed that Gopalaswami had said that they would ‘‘have to take some drastic steps against Laloo Prasad Yadav.’’

Saptarishi said he had decided to raise ‘‘the moral issue’’ after he read about Tandon’s appointment as Chief Election Commissioner.

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He said the issue was of a larger national importance—of ‘‘casteism creeping into the functioning of a constitutional body’’, thereby,‘‘wrecking the secular fabric of the country’’.

Although today’s twist came as an anti-climax—after his allegations of an EC slant towards the then NDA government in the letter to Bhardwaj was flaunted yesterday by RJD’s Chhapra candidate Laloo Prasad Yadav—Saptarishi’s press conference at the India International Centre (IIC) was not without its share of drama. First, it was interrupted by an angry IIC general manager Lalit Joshi who accused him of misusing the Centre’s premises. Then, Chief Election Commissioner T S Krishnamurthy—from whom Tandon will take over on June 16—happened to stroll in minutes after Saptarishi had levelled his allegations. Krishnamurthy immediately denied that any casteist remarks were made.

‘‘They (Tandon and Gopalaswamy) were sitting close to me. I know what remarks they have been making. Why should such a statement be made? I have not heard any sort of casteist remarks,’’ he said.

Yesterday, Laloo had demanded Tandon and Gopalaswami’s resignation from the EC on the basis of Saptarishi’s letter to Bhardwaj.

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