Bharat Bhushan: The neutralisation of Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa

It is highly unusual for someone holding a constitutional position to be offered a lucrative posting by the very Executive he is supposed to be independent of. Yet, Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa has been nominated by the government as a Vice President of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and he has accepted the offer – he had two more years left in his constitutional role. Prima facie, both the government’s recommendation and Lavasa’s acceptance are damaging to Indian democracy. Lavasa will now be out of the succession for the post of Chief Election Commissioner falling vacant in April 2021.


 In the run up to the 2019 general election, Lavasa had opposed the clean chit given by the EC to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for violating the Model Code of Conduct. He did this not once, but five times, and when his dissent was not recorded, he refused to attend the EC’s meetings. It earned him the wrath of powerful political figures who won a massive mandate.

After they assumed power, Lavasa’s family was apparently ‘punished’ for his ‘intransigence’. His wife received income-tax notices. The Enforcement Directorate targeted a company in which his son was a director, for alleged violations of foreign exchange laws. His sister was hauled up for alleged stamp duty evasion. 

In an anguished December 2019 op-ed in The Indian Express, Lavasa had lamented his isolation: “It is naïve to expect those that have been opposed by the honest to meekly accept the ascendance of the meek. They strike back and the price for the honest could be in the form of lonely suffering, even noticeable isolation.”…
https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/ashok-lavasa-asian-development-bank-new-role-election-commission-exit-govt-nomination-democracy





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