BJP TODAY

September 16--30, 2005 - Vol. 14, No. 18

The NDA has demanded that all appointments made by Bihar Governor Shri Buta Singh to various statutory and other bodies on September 3 be cancelled.

A high-level NDA delegation comprising NDA's Chief Ministerial candidate Shri Nitish Kumar and BJP General Secretary and In charge of Bihar polls Shri Arun Jaitley, met the Election Commission on August 6, 2005 and put the demand alleging that the appointments were made in blatant violation of the model code of conduct.

"The decision of the Governor is colourable and amounts to a direct challenge not only to the model code of conduct but to the impartial authority of the Election Commission of India to hold free and fair elections," the leaders told the poll panel.

In its memorandum, the NDA alleged that the Bihar Governor made the appointments on the same day the Election Commission announced the schedule for elections to the state Assembly and consequently the model code of conduct came into effect. In the three appointments to the Bihar Public Service Commission, Laxmi Devi reportedly belongs to Lalu Prasad-led RJD and is a member of the Zila Parishad while Sudama Rai is a member of Congress, they alleged.

"Ram Karan Pal appointed to the Backward Classes Commission is a former MLC and currently state Vice-President of RJD while Gulam Tahir has been PS to former Chief Minister Rabri Devi.

"One can understand the dominance of one minority community in the appointments to the Minority Commission. But it takes too much to swallow that the 15 Point Programme Implementation Committee should have been packed entirely with members of one minority community.

The objective is obvious which is of influencing the voters of that community during the coming elections," the memorandum said.

The political nature of the appointments and the suspicious circumstances in which they have been made is very clear. We want the Commission to take a serious view and cancel all the appointments," Shri Jaitley told the media persons emerging from the 30 minute long meeting.

Shri Nitish Kumar said the delegation welcomed the poll schedule announced by the Commission and urged it to ensure that Central Paramilitary forces were deployed adequately in all sensitive booths to ensure free and fair polls.

"The tendency of the Administration is to deploy the forces in opposition strongholds and deploy only Home Guards in the strongholds of the ruling party," he said. The NDA delegation also included BJP leaders Shri Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Shri Prakash Javadekar, besides JD (U) leaders Shri Sharad Yadav, Shri Shambhu Nath Singh, Shri K C Tyagi and Shri R Ramakrishna.

The leaders of the Opposition alliance alleged that the Governor has included "persons accused of crimes like the Palamau sex scandal case and the tour and travel fraud case, in his hurried list of appointments".

Expressing apprehensions that the Bihar Administration will try to cover up by claiming that the notifications were ordered by the Governor before the model code came into effect on September 3, Shri Jaitley said while judicial orders take effect from the time they are pronounced, executive orders take effect only from the time they are implemented.

"In other words, these orders will take effect from the time the persons appointed to the above bodies assume their respective offices", he said and claimed that even in the Governor's order, it has been stated that the appointments would come into effect from the date they assume charge.

"It is also intriguing to note that the vacancies in the above bodies have existed for long time and therefore there was no such hurry for the Governor to announce these appointments all together on the same day, as if he had to beat the deadline before the code of conduct came into force. The existence of ulterior motives is consequently predicated", the memorandum said.