NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 25: The Chief Election Commissioner is not known to mince words but in an interview on BBC’s Hardtalk India, two months before his retirement, J.M. Lyngdoh has let them fly. Calling politicians ‘‘a cancer’’ that may kill the system, he claimed a vast majority of them were poorly educated who cheated all the time. 

They were little more than ‘‘zamindars exploiting the potential, resources of the state’’, and not a single one was committed to democracy or its basic tenet, individual freedom. Somebody has to raise their voice, ‘‘everybody is flattering them all the time,’’ Lyngdoh told show host Karan Thapar. 

Asked whether his recent remark that ‘‘if you are exposed to politicians too long, you’ll get cancer,’’ wasn’t too vehement, Lyngdoh said the word expressed his views accurately. ‘‘We haven’t been able to find any cure for cancer yet so, in due course, if cancer is cured, we’ll have to find some other expression,’’ he said. 

Told about Lyngdoh’s attack, CPI(M) MP Somnath Chatterjee said: ‘‘I feel hurt. I’ve spent 33 years in public life, no one has pointed fingers at me. I am certainly not a crook.’’ Further, he pointed out, ‘‘Without politicians, there is no election and without elections there is no EC.’’ 

However, for Lyngdoh, the relationship with politicians has always been adversarial. ‘‘We at the EC have always had to have power struggle with the political executive to be able to carry out proper elections,’’ he said. 

The CEC said he felt politicians lacked the basic qualities required of a leader. ‘‘There are very few of them who even know how to talk politely. There are very few who understand basic courtesies. There are very few who talk to you on equal terms as human beings. Either they have their noses stuck in the air or they’re prostrate at somebody’s feet—and there’s nothing in between.’’ 

On the criticism over his public snub to District Collector of Baroda prior to last year’s elections in Gujarat—he called him a ‘‘a joker’’—Lyngdoh said he had no regrets. ‘‘Maybe I should have been more aware of the mikes and the media around me,’’ he said. 

Criticising Lyngdoh’s remarks, BJP general secretary Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said: ‘‘He is harming the constitutional position he holds by making such indiscriminate statements.’’ 

While no one from the Congress was available for comment, CPI leader D. Raja said he understood Lyngdoh’s objections but that ‘‘he should not bracket all politicians in the same basket’’. Agreeing with this, Chatterjee had a suggestion for Lyngdoh: ‘‘We should try to involve better people in politics. Let the Commission do something positive to improve the system.’’ 

But in his parting message, Lyngdoh said he wanted the people to put pressure on politicians to have free and fair elections incorporated as a fundamental right. - EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE 

Source: The Indian Express

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