Narendra Modi hurt his own cause when he abandoned restraint and good sense to attack the Chief Election Commissioner, J. M. Lyngdoh the other day. For, whatever the provocation, it does not become anyone to resort to abuse and vilification. By obliquely suggesting that Lyngdoh's religion had something to do with the three-member Election Commission's collective decision to put off the Assembly poll in Gujarat till such time complete normalcy was restored to the satisfaction of EC, Modi had only shown his peeve and his lack of appreciation of the functioning of the constitutional body.
For sure, there could be valid differences over the EC's decision not to hold the poll before October 5 when under Article 174 the next meeting of the State Assembly must take place. The EC argued that its task to conduct free and fair elections superseded the stipulation under Article 174. Now, the Supreme Court would pronounce its verdict as to whether Article 324 was a stand-alone provision or it necessarily had to square with the entire constitutional scheme of things as envisaged by the founding fathers of the Republic.
On the face of it, the EC decision to virtually negate the provision under Article 174 which stipulates that there shall be no more than six-month's gap between sittings of a State legislature was bad in law. Also, the EC on its fact-finding visit to Gujarat seemed to have been overly influenced by the orchestrated campaign by interested parties against an early poll in the State which they feared could benefit the ruling BJP.
Reports that the election commissioners made themselves available only to the tutored sections in the minority community too could not be countered easily. Besides, the shrill and wholly one-sided campaign undertaken by the sections of the English language press seemed to have, consciously or unconsciously, influenced the EC decision.
For, everyone wants to impress his peers and limited circle of friends and acquaintances, even though the ambit of the EC would naturally extend to even those people, whom in another unfortunate context, he referred to as 'menials.' Yet, Modi was entirely in the wrong in ascribing motives to the EC decision. His reference to Lyngdoh's religious faith was wholly unwarranted, nay, obnoxious. It does not behoove the Chief Minister of Gujarat to call the CEC, a senior constitutional functionary, names.
Given the fact that Modi is the self-appointed votary of Hindutva claiming to represent the 5,000- year- old civilization, his remarks against Lyngdoh show him in rather poor light. The Gujarat CM must make amends for his ill-tempered behaviour. In this context, the Union Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi's criticism of Modi is entirely justified.
For sure, Modi's ill-chosen words against the CEC would provide his critics further ammunition to target him. But, in all fairness, the CEC too ought to have shown restraint in his public remarks while he was on a fact- finding mission to Gujarat. Lyngdoh's failure to make amends for his ill-tempered behaviour with senior district officials was unbecoming of someone holding such a high constitutional office. Admittedly, Lyngdoh had been chastised earlier by the Haryana High Court for having shown a similar temperamental streak against the State Chief Minister Om Prakash Chauthala in a previous general election.
The court had passed strictures against Lyngdoh who at the time was a member of the Commission and was yet to be promoted as the CEC. Clearly, those strictures do not seem to have curbed Lyngdoh's propensity to fly off the handle as was revealed on his recent visit to Gujarat. But, more disturbingly, the CEC revealed his elitist, nay, non-democratic mind-set when he blamed Modi's unfortunate remarks against him as the 'gossip of menials.'
Given the low level of literacy and the vast numbers of uneducated unemployed, the CEC's contemptuous reference to 'menials,' who as a class form a vast percentage of the voters, was most unfortunate. Again, his elitist bias was again visible when he bemoaned the lack of politicians 'with a liberal education,' as if the great unwashed masses did not know what was good for Indian democracy.
Despite their lack of education,
liberal or otherwise, these masses were responsible for the survival of
our democratic system. Otherwise, elitists like Lyngdoh would have long
ago turned it into an oligarchy of the Lyngdohs for the Lyngdohs alone.
A change of mind-set even at this late stage would do India's CEC a lot
of good.