A hard-hitting editorial

The conduct of the Election Commission in transferring police officials in AP has been critically analysed in your editorial of the 28th March. The electorate, to say the least, is confounded by the strange behaviour of the EC in the matter.

These officials do not seem to be inefficient nor are they reported to be hand in glove with criminals; at least that is the public perception. On the contrary it is the conduct of the EC which has become suspect.

Is the EC acting at the behest of known depredators and is thus hand in glove with those elements which are facing legal scrutiny in courts for their alleged economic offences and alleged criminal misconduct of various kinds?

As you hinted in your editorial, the EC appeared last September to be too casual while dealing with the several complaints of voters' names missing from the electoral rolls in Telangana at the Assembly elections.

Contrast this earlier behaviour of the EC with the present apparently unholy promptness with which police officials in A P are transferred overnight without assigning any reasons to even the affected officials.

You have rightly compared the current EC's conduct with that of T N Seshan. Permit me to add to your observation that, even during the Emergency days of the mid-seventies, such peremptory exhibition of overzealousness and cronyism of officials was not on display.

Maringanti, Secunderabad