A number of AICC members and many of the losers of the CWC election during the Congress plenary in Calcutta last week allege that the election process was purposely changed this time so that AICC members had to cast their votes in the presence of senior party leaders loyal to party president Sitaram Kesri.
How would you like it if you have to vote in the presence of senior party leaders who were part of the official panel floated by the party president, an AICC member said. He claimed that never before was there more than one polling booth for CWC elections, in which the little over 1,000 AICC members voted.
If you notice, there were as many booths set up as nominees in the official panel. And each booth was constantly watched by one nominee from the panel, he said. How do you expect a voter from Bihar to vote against the official panel in the presence of Tariq Anwar, he asked.
More From This Section
He however was not sure if the results of the election would have been significantly different if polling was held withoout such supervision. Only the fate of the likes of Rajesh Pilot who lost by five votes to his nearest rival Vijay Bhasker Reddy might have changed, he said.
An election agent for a losing candidate chipped in to say that the results could actually have been very different. Every vote counts in an CWC election since the electoral college is small, he pointed out.
Didnt you see how industrialists were taking interest in the CWC election results, he asked. With the United Front poised for disintigration, and people seeing a chance for Congress, stakes were very high.
As for senior leaders able to influence voters at the polling booths, the polling agent said he himself was able to convince several people to caste a vote in his leaders favour even while they were stamping their ballot.
Many people did not know how to vote. It was easy to explain them and then ask for one in favour of my leader, he said triumphantly. All his effort however could not help his candidate win. He just crossed the 200-vote mark.
While winners were accused of using unfair means, some of the losers were actually no different when it came to campaigning. Almost all the candidates had a separate team of at least 10-15 hard core supporters working for them round the clock.
The core team was transported from their respective towns to Calcutta by air, put up in expensive hotels, provided a mobile phone each and a good number of cars.
One such supporter of a nominee said that his leader had booked a room in a five star hotel as his campaign headquarters. They were all given a mobile phone and were free to sign bills on their leaders behalf in the hotel.