With the President on Wednesday appointing Navin Chawla as the Chief Election Commissioner, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government can be said to have achieved what it had intended four years ago. Whether this will end the controversy surrounding Mr Chawla ever since he stepped into Nirvachan Sadan on May 13, 2005, is a moot point. Given his seniority and age (he was next to N Gopalaswamy, who was then the other election commissioner, with B B Tandon as the Chief Election Commissioner), it was clear to all that after Mr Gopalaswamy’s appointment as the CEC in 2006 and the completion of his tenure in April 2009, it would be Mr Chawla who would head the Election Commission and, therefore, conduct the general elections to the 15th Lok Sabha.
Sensing this plan and in view of Mr Chawla’s longstanding proximity to the Congress leadership, the opposition political parties, chiefly the Bharatiya Janata Party, had questioned the UPA government’s decision even in 2005. Mr Tandon was not sufficiently moved by such noises and did not even refer the charges brought against Mr Chawla to the President. Mr Gopalaswamy was different. He made no bones about his differences with Mr Chawla and his alleged partisan behaviour. He sent his complaints to the President and sought Mr Chawla’s removal from office. The President’s order appointing Mr Chawla as the CEC confirms that the government has dismissed Mr Gopalaswamy’s charges. If the charges that Mr Gopalaswamy sent to the President are what newspapers have published, they do not conclusively establish acts of commission or omission by Mr Chawla. Mere suspicion or suggestion of bias is not sufficient grounds for the extreme step of dismissing an election commissioner.
What has strengthened the government’s position on the matter is the law ministry’s opinion that the CEC has no suo motu power to recommend the ouster of an election commissioner. Indeed, the opposition of the BJP and other like-minded political parties to Mr Chawla’s continuation as an election commissioner had weakened considerably in the last few weeks. The BJP has in fact given up its plan to challenge the government’s decision to appoint Mr Chawla as the CEC, though a different political party has now filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking its clarification on whether the President is Constitutionally bound to act on the recommendation of the CEC to remove a member of the Commission. The Supreme Court will hear the petition on March 20 and, it must be hoped, the controversy over Mr Chawla’s appointment and elevation will come to an end. While the UPA can be questioned on the manner in which it has made a key Constitutional appointment, it is important to set in place a new procedure for such appointments. Ideally, in order to insure against partisan appointments, there should be an appointment panel which includes the leader of the opposition. Meanwhile, the ball is now in Mr Chawla’s court. As the next head of an institution that will oversee elections in the world’s largest democracy, Mr Chawla has to remember that his conduct will be under watch. Indeed, the onus will be on him to prove that he is not and he will not be politically attached to the Congress.
