Maximal leader, minimal bureaucrat

 

I don’t think many people outside Bengal have heard about Mira Pandey. 

Everything about her was quiet, understated, minimal – soft-spoken, never bothered about posting and lurched from insignificant post to insignificant post without ever being a district Magistrate and retired from the “lowly” post of Principal Secretary, Cottage and Small-scale Industry in 2008. The Left Front government was on the lookout for just such a person for a sinecure job of State Election Commissioner and thought she fit the bill perfectly. Lucky for them, they never knew how badly they had miscalculated.

 

Unlike the Central Election Commission, the West Bengal State Election Commission does not enjoy untrammelled independence. The state deliberately passed an Act where the dates of polls etc. were to be decided by the government. In fact, unlike the high-profile Central Election Commissioner, the West Bengal State Election Commissioner’s job was considered a dead-end.

 

There was just a minor skirmish between the Left Front government and Mira when they wanted a single-phase rural polls and Mira opposed. The government budged and that was that. When elections are held in a single phase, the Police force gets scattered. Many of the booths get manned by unarmed Home Guards or even temporarily recruited volunteers who are ill, fragile, overage and singularly incapable of tackling any disturbance. This helps the Party with numerical strength, usually the ruling Party.

 

Then came Didi riding on a Tsunami of a mandate in 2011. There was nothing quiet about her. She ran roughshod over everything and everyone, even micro managing leave applications of DMs and SPs. Every single bureaucrat from the Chief Secretary to the Constable felt the heat. Supreme leader. Maximal absolutism. Most heads of departments and institutions panicked, and then gave in. Even initiating a case or arresting someone required Didi’s permission.

 

Something sleepy called a State Election Commission must have been just a gleam in the eye for Didi and Trinamool Congress in the initial days. In 2013, the Panchayat elections fell due.

 

The State Election Commission requested 400 observers. It recommended polling in three phases. It also pointed out that the existing strength of Police force was inadequate to meet the requirement hence central forces be requisitioned. In response, the state government provided 266 observers. It unilaterally declared a single Poll date as they had the power as per the West Bengal Panchayat Elections Act. They said that there was no need for central forces.

 

The significance of this: In Bengal Panchayat elections, there is a tendency by the ruling party not to allow any candidate to stand against the ruling party candidate. CPM had developed this into a fine art. In the 2003 elections, in many villages where anyone dared to stand against the CPM candidate, the intellectual giants of the party visited the rival and gave him long and cogent arguments regarding Karl Marx, Lenin, the intricacies of dialectical materialism, etc.. If the fellow got convinced, it was good. If he did not get convinced, the leaders politely withdrew, called a small child in the neighbourhood and gave him a white saree to present to the rival candidate’s wife, with their compliments. In sheer terror, many candidates withdrew and 2003 saw an unprecedented number of seats where the CPM candidates won unopposed. Didi didn’t have time for the intellectual bit. Any rival candidate was beaten up mercilessly on his way to the BDO office or SDO office to file his nomination and he was not able to reach. Mira Pandey sent observers for the nomination phase also and cancelled the election wherever there was intimidation. Hence she needed more observers and hence the state government was not willing. Single poll date and avoiding central forces had similar logic.

 

Under normal circumstances, that would have been the end of the matter. As mandated by the Act, the State Election Commission had made its recommendations. The state government was not mandated to follow the recommendations and had done their own thing. Even though everyone knew the reality, the farce called Panchayat elections would have been gone through. Hardly any State Election Commissioner, much less a quiet, unassuming lady like Mira Pandey would go public with it. Most civil servants would have reread the Act, swallowed the prickling of their conscience and bitten the bullet.

 

Not Mira Pandey. She did something extraordinary. She filed a case in the Calcutta High Court against the State government. All hell broke loose. This was unheard of. No Election Commission had ever filed a case against the government. In West Bengal the concerned Act favoured the government. There were dire threats to the person of Mira Pandey from public platforms and through letters. She did not respond to anything except forwarding all such intimidation to the DGP. The state government was still confident that they would carry the day because as per the Act, they had the power to do what they did. What they had not bargained for was that Mira Pandey would challenge the constitutionality of the Act itself. She did, with devastating effect.

 

In the High Court, she pointed out that during the previous Panchayat polls, the polling booths numbered 47,731 which had now increased to 57,012. The voters had increased by almost a lakh. She pointed out that she had asked for 400 observers and the government had provided only 266. She had asked for 800 Companies (80,000 personnel) of Central forces and the state government had refused. Most importantly, section 42 of the Panchayat Election Act was ultra vires (i.e., incompatible) with section 243 K of the Constitution which envisaged a neutral and impartial conduct of elections. The High Court ordered that the Commission would issue the dates, the state government would supply the balance observers and get additional forces as required by the Commission.

 

The state government decided to play the (wo)man and not the ball. They tried to discredit Mira Pandey. Many leaders openly and covertly threatened her life and limb. She never spoke to the Press. When cornered by some media as she was entering the car, she merely said, “The Commission cannot make irresponsible statements.” This must have hurt. The state government also indulged in dilatory tactics so as not to comply with the High Court order. All Mira did was quietly file a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court regarding the dilatory tactics.

 

I don’t think there have been many angrier judgements by the Supreme Court. In fact, one of the judges told the open Court, “We will show West Bengal government how elections are conducted.” Instead of the three phases asked for, they increased the schedule to five phases, fixed timelines for provision of observers and central forces and virtually made the State Election Commission the final authority for everything for that period. 2013 saw the fairest Panchayat elections in West Bengal. There were the least number of seats won uncontested. Mira Pandey became and still is a household name in West Bengal.

 

In fact, she terrorised Didi so much that there was a rumour that Didi used to check whether she had left her office for the day so that she could not take retaliatory action and then gather her papers and talk to the Press regarding anything to do with the elections.

 

On her last day in office, Mira Pandey reluctantly agreed to a rare interview by the Telegraph. Her answers were extremely banal and non-controversial. Deliberately so. When goaded to comment on Didi, she said, “I have all due respect for the Chief Minister’s chair.” Then she got into her car and rode off into the sunset.

 

Till date, when agitated about anything to do with elections, many Bengalis still murmur, “Alas, had Mira Pandey been there today …”