Chief electoral officer Rathan Khelkar’s appointment as Kerala CM’s secretary draws criticism

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: CPM and BJP have come out against the state govt’s decision to appoint chief electoral officer Rathan Khelkar as chief minister V D Satheesan’s principal secretary. Both BJP and CPM asked Congress to clarify its stand on the matter as Rahul Gandhi had criticised West Bengal govt’s decision to appoint the CEO there as state chief secretary.

In a statement, the CPM state secretariat said that Khelkar’s appointment is a step that calls into question the credibility of the assembly elections itself.

“Kerala has never seen such an appointment being made immediately after an election, as though it were a reward for the services rendered. What has happened now strengthens the LDF’s allegation that, during the election phase, Election Commission (EC) took several biased and opaque steps in favour of UDF," the statement said.

BJP former state president K Surendran was the first to raise the alleged double standard of Congress. "When BJP appointed former West Bengal CEO Manoj Agarwal as chief secretary soon after the elections, Rahul Gandhi screamed that “the bigger the theft the bigger the reward”. But exactly 10 days later, Congress govt led by V D Satheesan has appointed Kerala CEO Rathan Khelkar as secretary. So, Rahulji, what happens in Kerala, is still "reward for theft" or suddenly the “beauty of democracy?’’ he tweeted.

The CPM secretariat, meanwhile, also recalled the controversy that a BJP seal appeared on EC’s letter to political parties instead of its own seal. When similar appointments took place in West Bengal, Rahul tweeted that “the bigger the theft in the backroom dealings between BJP and EC, the bigger the payoff”. AICC responded that the appointment was a shameless nexus and a fixed match, the statement recalled.

“Rahul and AICC must clarify whether what happened in Kerala is not the same shameless collusion and nexus among Congress, BJP and EC,” CPM state secretariat said.

In the name of SIR, millions of votes were struck off in Kerala. Left front had protested back then against EC’s approach of deleting genuine voters while retaining ineligible names. EC had also insisted on stopping new registrations without informing anyone, a week before the pre-announced deadline to add names to the voters’ list. The suspicion is now growing stronger that this rush to finalise the list came only after ensuring that UDF votes were added first.

Affixing a BJP seal on the EC’s letter is another such interference, the statement alleged. There were also multiple confusions in granting symbols to LDF candidates, including in Palakkad constituency. There are complaints that several LDF symbols were printed on the voting machine in a way that made them unclear. Kerala also saw lakhs of employees deployed for election duty being denied their voting rights. Even weeks after the poll, EC was not willing to release even the exact voting percentage. There were even allegations that strong rooms were opened. This appointment reinforces the suspicion that a planned intervention lay behind all of this.

In Bengal, the appointment of CEO Agarwal as chief secretary and Subrata Gupta, who led the SIR, as CM’s principal adviser immediately after the elections drew sharp criticism. Opposition parties, including CPM, raised the issue at the national level. AICC had demanded a cooling-off period before key officials assigned to election-related duties could be given top posts under the winning govt. Congress and Rahul, who criticised the Bengal appointment nationally, must clarify how they view a similar move in Kerala.

On one side, the BJP-led central govt is trying to undermine the EC’s neutrality; on the other, a Congress-led state govt is carrying out comparable interventions. Election commissions are turning into bodies that take decisions to suit the wishes of political brass. We register strong protest against the interventions by central and state govts that erode the EC’s credibility itself,” the statement said.