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EC changed face of Bihar elections



Election Commisssion and fair Elections in India


Prakash Singh
Monday, April 23, 2007 (Patna)
Gun firing, men scurrying around, booths being captured; it is what elections in Bihar once meant. This was until 1995 when Bihar witnessed its first high security khaki election.

It was an election that T N Seshan, the 10th Chief Election Commissioner of India, had made his battleground.

Large battalions of armies were spread across the state so people could cast votes fearlessly.

Voter turnout touched an all-time high at 60 per cent, mainly because Bihar's OBCs - so suppressed by the threat of upper-caste retaliation - came out to vote in strength.

The man they swept to power in that historic election was Laloo Yadav.

Today the great irony is that Laloo has only criticism for high security elections.

''These huge expenses on elections are just a waste of the taxpayers' money,'' Yadav said.

Laloo's anger today to high security elections is understandable.

In 2005 the wheel had come full circle. Laloo and Rabri Devi were fighting a make or break election and there were fears that his regime would prevent a fair election.

Drastic methods

It is when K J Rao took up where Seshan had left. Drafted as special observer during Bihar elections, he ordered polling in several rounds.

All tainted officers, even in police, were kept out of election duty.

Instead 70,000 policemen from 450 companies of central paramilitary forces were posted across booths. Polling was cancelled if enough security was not available.

But it was a hung assembly and Bihar went to polls again. Rao geared up yet again with more drastic methods.

Honest officers were airlifted and rotated between polling booths and all those with warrant pending against them were rounded up.

''I am happy that the election process has been completed. The credit goes to the Election Commission. I am happy. I'm sure it makes you happy as well,'' Rao had said.

In ten years, from Seshan to Rao, the face of Bihar's elections had changed completely. From bloody battles to peaceful polling where the only guns on the scene belonged to men in khaki.