JOIN USChief Election Commissioner (CEC) V S Sampath has reportedly sought President Pranab Mukherjee’s guidance on Election Commissioner H S Brahma whose opinions allegedly showed the EC in a bad light.
Sampath apparently met the President before Brahma gave interviews to the media.
Brahma has indicated that the EC should have replied to BJP leader Arun Jaitley’s letter immediately and a decision “either way” on Narendra Modi's Varanasi rally should have been taken and conveyed faster to the BJP. Though Sampath denied on Saturday that he met “anyone to complain against any one”, EC sources said the CEC briefed the President about Brahma’s opinions.
Mukherjee apparently did not offer any suggestion but is understood to have told the CEC to sort out the issue internally, sources said. Incidentally, Sampath and Brahma are former IAS officers belonging to the Andhra Pradesh cadre.
On Saturday, Sampath gave interviews to the media and tried to bring Brahma on the same page.
“The EC consists of three commissioners. Brahma is one of them. Whatever the decisions we have been taking, we have taken them collectively. There is no difference among us,” he told CNN-IBN.
He defended the decision of Varanasi District Magistrate and Returning Officer (RO) Pranjal Yadav to deny permission to a Modi rally and refuted the BJP’s allegations of bias.
In an interview to PTI, Sampath pointed out that Brahma was also party to all the decisions and any attack on the Commission applied to all three members.
The whole situation reminds one of the tussle between then CEC T N Seshan and EC G V G Krishnamurthy in the 1990s.
Differences between Sampath and Brahma got sharpened recently.
Sampath tried to put an end to the issue. “The full Commission would like to clarify that the top leadership, comprising all the three commissioners, functions and acts as a team and is discharging its constitutional responsibilities with firmness and promptitude,” read a statement by the EC on Friday.
Bone of contention
* Number of phases Sampath insisted on a nine-phase poll whereas Brahma favoured a five-phase one. Sampath had his way as the third EC member, Syed Nazim Ahmad Zaidi, backed him.
* Missing names
Sampath differed with Brahma when the latter apologised to Mumbaikars over missing names in the voters’ list. He held the voters responsible for the lapse as they failed to check the electoral rolls.
* Army Chief selection Sampath did not see any issue in appointing new Army chief amid election process, Brahma said the government could wait till the end of elections.
* Varanasi RO Brahma complained that Sampath had not briefed the other two ECs on issue surrounding Varanasi RO’s decision not to allow a Modi rally. Sampath defended RO’s actions; Brahma said the RO should have avoided the delay in taking a decision on BJP’s request.