Minister slams EC's role in Malda

Statesman News Serevice

MALDA(India)Feb. 6. — Mr Subhas Chakraborty, minister for sports, youth and transport, while addressing a transport workers’ free health check camp at Malda college auditorium today, vehemently criticised the role played by the Chief Election Commissioner, Mr BB Tandon, in the execution of the electoral work in Malda. He said: “What Mr Tandon is doing here is completely anti-national.” The veteran CPI-M leader said: “The entire electoral drive undertaken by the EC is humiliating for the people’s representatives. Don’t we have any say?” Citing an example from the year 1975, he said three amendments were made in the Indian Constitution and a Bench was constituted against the amendments. The 480-page report was in favour of the public representatives, when Mrs Indira Gandhi was terminated from her chair as PM.Recalling the recommendation of Chandrachud Commission, Mr Chakraborty said: “Parliament has specific areas under which it has to operate. The same goes for the administration as well. But the EC in Malda seems to be playing a larger role and it is quite obvious in the manner it talks to the media. It must not forget that the ministers have come into power with the people’s verdict. To call the voters “ghost” is an insult to us as well.Mr Chakrabaorty did not spare the media as well. He said: “In the last two decades, the media in this state is playing the role of an enemy for us in every election”. “When the EC addresses 9 lakh voters as false, it is ignoring the Parliamentary system. If a voter dies or changes his place in course of time, is it his fault? Does this give the EC the right to call him a false voter?”, the minister added.“Nowadays the media is portraying some secretaries as having a larger than life image. It is nothing new. Right from the year 1982 onwards, the Left Front had to fight against the media more than any Opposition political party in the state for the very reason.” Mr Chakrabarty claimed that there was a mahajot between Mr BB Tandon, the media and TMC chief Miss Mamata Banerjee.#