Controversy dogged Joti’s 6-month stint

NEWDELHI: Achal Kumar Joti’s sixmonth tenure as the chief election commissioner that ends on Monday was mired in controversy. As the head of the poll panel, which is mandated to carry out elections to the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies, Joti came under the Opposition’s attack for deferring polls in Gujarat instead of clubbing it with Himachal Pradesh, and, more recently, for the recommendation to the President to disqualify 20 MLAs of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for allegedly holding office of profit.

For deferring Gujarat election, the Opposition accused Joti, who had served as principal secretary to Narendra Modi when he was the chief minister of that state, of partisanship. But it was also all praise for him for disqualifying the votes of two Congress rebel lawmakers in the state’s Rajya Sabha polls, which allowed Congress MP Ahmed Patel to win a closely contested battle.

However, its decision to agree to the Gujarat government’s request to give it more time to wind up rehabilitation and relief operations in flood-affected areas of the state did not go down well with the Opposition. A slew of sops announced by the administration in the run up to the polls gave an opportunity to the Opposition to train its guns at the EC.

The Congress alleged that the BJP government appeared to be “putting pressure” on the EC.

Described as a “meticulous” official who stresses on “detail”, Joti has been in the eye of a storm after the ruling party in Delhi accused the EC of not following due process before recommending the disqualification of its 20 legislators who were accused of holding an office of profit.

A 1975- batch IAS officer of the Gujarat cadre, Joti has maintained a steadfast silence on the accusations levelled by the AAP, which said he defied “principles of natural justice” and did not hear the MLAs’ case.

Officials who worked with Joti since he joined the EC in 2015 said during his term in the office, he streamlined the e-filing system for maintaining official records and also pushed for transparency in payments.