Out of bounds

It is only the affected political camp that can see a scope for controversy over the Chief Election Commissioner M.S. Gill’s latest initiative to deter vitiation of the Lok Sabha elections by official violence of a criminal character. He can be certain of popular support for his directive barring the entry of a minister of Uttar Pradesh into Pratapgarh district till the polling date. The CEC will also be seen as being very much within his functional competence and capacity in asking for effective and expeditious action on the first information report registered against Programme Implementation Minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh in relation to a dispute involving police personnel on duty and a shooting incident that recently marred the electoral campaigning in the district. A case of constitutional sophistry can, of course, be sought to be made out against the order, but only without carrying any public conviction. Raja Bhaiyya’, as the august personage is referred to by a reverent flock, has reacted withindignation to the abridgement of his "fundamental rights". There can be no statutory right of this description, nor any power-conferred privilege, to criminalise politics and, more particularly, to flex ministerial muscles in a poll fray.

The minister accused of attempting to interfere with the law-and-order machinery has, predictably, sworn loyalty to the Chief Minister and talked of taking the matter to the leader. Kalyan Singh must beware. He will not be enhancing the already eroded credibility of his government in this regard by taking up cudgels against the Election Commission. He was pulled up only the other day for administrative decisions and announcements of doubtful poll-eve propriety. And, he has not appeared above reproach in electoral conduct of compatibility with the agreed code in decreeing withdrawal of court cases associated with the Babri demolition. It is well known that he presides over a government of crime-tainted composition. By adopting a stance that would seem a defence of hisminister’s extramural activities, he will be giving proof not of his party’s avowed resort to realpolitik but only a refusal to recognise the danger and the damage to democracy that the Raja Bhaiyyas of this land represent. The Chief Minister will do wisely not to come in the way of the Election Commission’s efforts to ensure free and fair polls.

The EC’s decision, in any case, should be viewed as more than an intervention in UP alone. The order, if enforced, will make an example of this particular minister and send out a much-needed message to others in the fray who prefer to flaunt muscles and power more than their party manifestoes. Gill has only acted on the concern expressed by the commission before about the large proportion of members with criminal backgrounds in the last Lok Sabha. Appeals to the political parties to deny tickets to candidates of this category can hardly be said to have been heeded adequately. It is for the EC and enlightened sections of the electorate — as distinct from those thatdeify criminals-turned politicians — to assert their fundamental right to elections free from crime and violence.