There was no need for EC to have delinked HP and Gujarat polls: ex-CEC

Hyderabad, October 17 : Former Chief Election Commissioner TS Krishnamurthy on Tuesday said there was no need for the Election Commission to “delink” the Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat Assembly polls, and termed it an “avoidable controversy”.
Krishnamurthy argued that the Himachal Pradesh election could have been postponed by a few days to club it with that in Gujarat.
“I don’t know why they should be delinked because it was an avoidable controversy, I thought. There was no need to delink them,” the former CEC said.
“When the convention (holding elections to Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat simultaneously) has been so, it could have been easily followed, or even if there was difficulty, the Himachal elections could have been postponed by four or five days,” he said.
The EC had on October 12 announced that the Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh would be held in a single phase on November 9 and the results would be declared on December 18.The poll panel did not announce the dates for Assembly elections in Gujarat, but Chief Election Commissioner AK Joti had said that the elections would be held before December 18. On BJP MP Varun Gandhi reportedly terming the poll panel a “toothless tiger”, Krishnamurthy said, “There is no power (with the poll panel) to deregister (derecognise parties), but whether it made it (EC) toothless animal, I don’t know.”