Scraps Stuffs - Random musings from apun ka desh

Back from a week's vacation and now there's lots of work to catch up on :-(

Meanwhile I read a nice article by Swapan Dasgupta - Did the EC strike out your name? which basically echoes what I feel about the EC. I particularly liked the lines "The EC is running completely amok. Its main task is to ensure a free and fair poll and it has been empowered by both the Constitution and the courts to do what is necessary to ensure the sanctity of democracy. What is necessary to be done depends on a combination of administrative rigour and good sense. It is the latter commodity that seems to be absent from Nirvachan Sadan."

The EC seems to be spending more time doing stuff which carries greater visibility but doesn't promote the cause of ensuring fair elections. The most apt line from the article is "Otherwise, its natural inclination is to pry into matters that have no bearing on the conduct of the polls." That sums up what the Indian EC is trying to do. Get bigger than its boots.