The Election Commission was, on Saturday, once again left fending questions on its impartiality after it rescheduled its press conference to announce dates for the coming round of assembly elections by two-and-a-half hours. Opposition parties alleged that the announcement of poll schedule was shifted from 12:30pm to 3pm because Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to address a rally in poll-bound Rajasthan at 1pm.
The EC, on Saturday morning, informed the media about an important press conference to be held by it at 12:30 pm, and it was apparent that the poll body would be announcing the schedule for the assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram. However, an hour later, it informed that the media briefing had been rescheduled to 3 pm.
Promptly, Randeep Surjewala, in-charge of AICC communications department, tweeted questioning whether the rescheduling of the announcement of poll dates had anything to do with Modi's rally, which was to be held at Ajmer, Rajasthan, at 1pm.
The insinuation was that the EC had acted under pressure from the government to reschedule the press conference, as announcement of poll schedule would have led to immediate kicking in of the model code of conduct, which would prevent the prime minister from making announcements about the new initiatives launched by his government. Surjewala even asked if the BJP is the “Super EC”.
AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj tweeted: “Pleading for free and fair Election to the ECI who could postpone its Press Conference at last minute. Just to accommodate political rally by Prime Minister where he will announce schemes in the poll bound Rajasthan. Who should be ashamed? ECI or PM or Citizens??”
The commission was at pains to explain the reasons behind rescheduling of the press conference. Chief Election Commissioner O.P. Rawat began the briefing with an apology to the media. Before he got into the announcement of poll schedule, he tried to explain the reasons behind the rescheduling of the media conference. He said it was because the commission was constrained because of certain compulsions.
Without naming Telangana, he attributed the rescheduling of the press conference to delay in publication of the state's electoral rolls. “One of the states had to publish its electoral rolls on October 8....However, it emerged this morning that it will take some more time,” Rawat said.
He also pointed out that a case is pending in the High Court with regard to the electoral roll, and the court has ordered that the final roll must be shown to it and only then can it be finally published. “This has made us change the date of final publication of roll from October 8 to 12,” the CEC said. He added that keeping this exigency in mind, the commission has kept Telaganga at the fag end of the election schedule. Polls will be held in the state on December 7, while counting of results in all the five states will take place on December 11.
Another reason cited by Rawat for postponement of the briefing was that the chief secretary of Tamil Nadu, Girija Vaidyanathan, requested the EC on Saturday that dates for bypolls in the state should not be announced now because of forecast of rain and cyclone.
In an apparent reference to the speculation over why the commission delayed the press conference and the Congress' allegations, Rawat said, “Politicians and political parties are political creatures. They have to see politics in everything. It is their inherent nature. We have no comment to make on that.”
Replying to a query on the Congress' charge that the commission was working under pressure from the Modi government, Rawat said, “There is no pressure on the commission. Had these reasons not been there, there would not have been a delay of 2.5 hours in the press conference.”
He further said if there is any such issue of concessions being made to anyone, people are free to complain. “It is the duty of the commission to satisfy all stakeholders,” he said.
The Commission earlier faced flak when it de-linked the announcement of elections in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, which were to go to polls in the same round. It was alleged by BJP's political opponents that the EC did so under pressure from the ruling dispensation to give it more time to announce poll sops. Later, there was a controversy when even as Rawat was about to announce the poll schedule for Karnataka, the election dates were put out by some media outlets as well as politicians.