The Rediff Special

'He wanted all the powers for himself. He saw himself in the position of the last man on earth'

What, indeed, is T N Seshan's legacy?

The demeaning of the political class is usually laid at the door of the judiciary. Seshan actually began it. And his activism did not arise from any zeal to cleanse the system as from thwarted ambitions.

''If you have to assess Seshan the CEC you have to consider his record as a bureaucrat," says Jaipal Reddy, the former spokesman of the Janata Dal. ''As defence secretary, he supported the HDW submarine deal, and he was also party to the Bofors cover-up."

Assuming even that a worm can turn, Seshan still can't justify postponing the Punjab assembly election on PM-designate Narasimha Rao's orders just five hours before they were scheduled. In moments of truth, Seshan has told M S Gill, now his successor, with whom he got along passably well, "I know you won't forgive me for it." Gill won't ask for an explanation from Seshan. There is none.

Seshan split with Narasimha Rao only when Rao refused to bring forth amendments in the People's Representation Act and related election laws that would empower Seshan greatly more. Said a top bureaucrat who advises Seshan regularly: "He wanted all the powers for himself. He saw himself in the position of the last man on earth."

Soon after the break up, the first phase of baiting the National Front ended, and Seshan began taking on the Congress party. Rao responded by enlarging the Election Commission to three members by bringing a Gill and G V G Krishnamurthy, a former senior law officer in the government.

Seshan appealed against this in the Supreme Court, and Palkhivala's exhortation in open court, 'This man is doing a great job. Please don't disturb the arrangement. Kindly announced your judgements after he retires in 1996' completed the halo around him.

Lecture tours began where audiences lapped up his diatribe against politicians and corruption. Followed his campaign against Rajya Sabha members, one of them, Pranab Mukherjee, was down to his keens because Seshan would not hold the Rajya Sabha election in West Bengal until Jyoti Basu had satisfied him on the voter identity cards issue.

There there was Mulayam Singh Yadav calling on Seshan on Seshan's visit to UP. And all of it got nicely packaged when Seshan appeared on television, specially wearing a smile that seemed to say, 'Since I'm there, it is all OK.'

What, you could ask, is wrong with Seshan insisting that Assamese ought to get elected to the Rajya Sabha from Assam and Maharashtrians from Maharashtra? Such is also the law. Within the confines of it, Seshan was not wrong. Even Gill and Krishnamurthy backed him. So is it right? ''No," says S Shakder, a former CEC.''Constitutional provisions cannot be interpreted as narrowly as municipal laws. Why cannot Manmohan Singh do his bit for Assam? It integrates the country. Anyone can contest a Lok Sabha election from any where. Why not a Rajya Sabha one, then?"

The picture of Mukherjee scraping before Seshan or of Mulayam Yadav paying obeisance to Seshan may also warm some people. But has it mean the end of Mukherjee or of Mulayam Singh Yadav or of the kind of politics they practise? Hardly so. Deferring elections and by-elections produced some thrills for newspaper readers while hardening the political class against him. Was it worth it?

Seshan, you could argue, even worked against this job. "His job," said a senior official of the Election Commission, ''was to work democracy, strengthen democracy. I am not now talking in platitudes. Seshan ran it down. You can go on demeaning politicians but you also run the risk of losing sight of the larger picture. Aren't we better off than Pakistan? Or Bangladesh?"

"You can picture it another way," the official goes on. "Take the havala issue. All political parties have political workers educating the voters about issues of the day. I am not going into whether it is correct or incorrect education. Not all of them reach even block level, but they work all the same. Do you want to smear all of them with the havala brush? Do you want them to leave their jobs? What will happen to all that political education? Seshan portrayed all politicians as corrupt. Can you do without them? Seshan forgot that he was an appointed official of the Constitution. He acted like a salaried Caesar."

Even if you believe that he did not, what do you make of his motives? He has never hidden from interviewers that he would like one day to be either prime minister or President. Doesn't that colour all his campaigns against politicians? What is the surety that he won't becomes like one of them?

He may actually be no different. Sunday has confirmation that Seshan has had several meetings with Deve Gowda, and if Deve Gowda can convince the Janata Dal hierarchy, then Seshan may be nominated to the Rajya Sabha. He is not undistinguished in any way to get such a nomination, but it settles poorly with his own principles of how politics ought to be practised.

Ultimately, it also represents a tragedy. Seshan has said to friends that the trust he found, the Deshbhakta Trust, won't carry him far. The political system has proved itself bigger than Seshan.

Courtesy: Sunday magazine