Election Commissioner SY Quraishi has never been afraid of challenges .An IAS officer of the Haryana cadre (1971 batch),he realized when he was appointed Doordarshan Director General that the national broadcaster was making far too few programmes inhouse. During his brief innings of 15 months,he was able to ensure that over 30 per cent of DD programmes were produced inhouse.He also gave DD News a new identity by introducing a gamut of fresh young faces, the majority of which,he points out regretfully,has since been poached by private networks. Quraishi,who has a doctorate from Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi on “The Role of Communication and Social Marketing in Development of Women and Children”,was also Director General of NACO.There too he caused some heartburn by challenging the HIV/AIDS statistics on India that were being bandied around by for eign donor agencies as being grossly inflated.The world community was forced to revise the figures and today India has three million HIV/AIDS-affected people instead of the exaggerated five million. An alumnus of St Stephen’s College,Quraishi has a number of publications to his credit, including the two-volumed Haryana Rediscovered – Bibliographical Area Study.He is also a linguist,having studied Persian,German and Arabic.
gfiles:With the growing politicization of our institutions,will the Election Commission continue to remain an independent entity? Former Election Commissioner TN Seshan used to say that once he retired,the EC would revert to being a political football to be kicked around by successive governments….
SYQuraishi:The Election Commission has only gone from strength to strength.It is one institution that has established its credibility beyond all doubt.People approach us with all kinds of complaints and demands.Before taking a decision,we get inputs from all possible sources like the bureaucracy,NGOs,civil society and,of course,the media.
The media remains our biggest ally because it keeps us in the loop about what is happening on the ground.Once
we come to know that there is some malfunctioning taking place some where,we even send our own video
teams to provide us with a first-hand appraisal of the details.Take the forth coming elections in Himachal Pradesh
and Gujarat.In the case of the former, the Chief Minister has asked for a post ponement while in the latter state there
has been some criticism about our decision to transfer police officials.All this is part of the democratic process.
gfiles: It seems as though the political party in power invariably emerges as the biggest critic of the Election Commission….
SYQ:That is true.Our experience is that while the party in power is almost invariably unhappy with us,the opposi
tion parties love us.But once the opposition party becomes the ruling party, the roles get reversed.Our aim is to pro
vide a level playing field and this tends to annoy the party in power.The fact of the matter is that ruling parties have
access to government funds and other facilities which they like to use but we do not permit. Take the case of Mulayam Singh Yadav when he was Chief Minister of UP.After the state elections,he went around issuing statements that he had not lost to Mayawati but to the Election Commission.The state of Uttar Pradesh has just witnessed three byelections.Though his party won one bypoll,the other two were won by Mayawati’s party.This time,he expressed complete satisfaction with the way the Election Commission had conducted the polls. Every state,whether Bihar,UP or
Uttarakhand,has felt the heat at different times.Both the ruling and the opposition parties realize, especially when
they are no longer in power, just how much they stand to benefit from our interventions.We address every single
grievance that we receive and we ensure that the polls are conducted in a fair and transparent manner.
gfiles: Isn’t it difficult to address every grievance that comes your way?
