Saturday, May 7 2005 17:10 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Patna: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Laloo Prasad today (May 7, 2005) demanded the immediate resignation of Chief Election Commissioner designate B B Tandon and Election Commissioner N.Gopalaswamy in the wake of serious charges of ommission and commission levelled against them by the special observer for Lok Sabha election in Bihar L V Saptharishi.

''The Election Commission must be reconstituted and Tandon and Gopalaswamy resign,'' he told a hurriedly called press conference where a letter purported to have been written by Saptharishi, at present director general of the Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology (CAPART) to Union Law Minister H R Bharadwaj was released.

''In view of the serious nature of the accusations, the two must resign and the EC reconstituted so that the prestige of the august organisation is not lowered,'' Laloo said.

Saptharishi, who was the special EC observer for Bihar in charge of all the 40 constituencies, in his letter said ''My conscience will not permit me to keep quiet and hence I am writing this letter to inform you that the appointment of Tandon as CEC and continuation of Gopalaswamy as election commissioner would be extremely undesirable in the interest of fair play, justice an democracy and impartial conduct of future elections.''

The letter to Bharadwaj written on May 6, 2005, said that although nothing extra-ordinary or abnormal happened at Chapra, where the then Union Civil Aviation Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy of Bharatiyua Janata Party (BJP) had crossed swords with Laloo Prasad, every attempt was made by Tandon and Gopalaswamy to countermand the poll after listening to the unreasonable demands of L K Advani (the then home minister), Rudy and others. Describing the outgoing CEC T S Krishnamurthy as a man of integrity, impartiality and objectivity, Saptharishi's letter alleged that he (Krishnamurthy) was not allowed by Tandon and Gopalaswamy to accept his (Saptharishi's) report on Chapra and forced him to go for repolling in the entire constituency.

The letter said that when Saptharishi reached Delhi after the polls, the two election commissioners told him they wanted to ''teach Laloo Prasad and all yadavas a lesson as no Yadav can be trusted'' .