NEW DELHI: A bossy chief election commissioner T N Seshan proposed an immediate halt to the general election process when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991 and put himself forward as home minister, claims a new book by former West Bengal governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi.Gopal Gandhi was joint secretary to then president R Venkatraman when the former prime minister was killed in a suicide bomb attack during an election rally in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.In “The Undying Light: A Personal History of Independent India”, launched by veteran actor Sharmila Tagore at the India International Centre (IIC) on Wednesday, Gandhi recalls that Seshan was the one who broke the news of the assassination to the president.Seshan also got himself to the Rashtrapati Bhawan “super-fast” that night, he writes.Gandhi was present at the Rashtrapati Bhawan alongside Seshan, Venkatraman and the president’s secretary P Murari.He says the CEC spoke his mind to him in “whispered urgency” only about 12 feet from where the president was seated.”With wide eyes and shovelling hands, Seshan spoke in whispered urgency. He said he felt the election process needed to be stopped straightaway, the nation’s security be brought under swift and strict control, and that he was ready to play his role beyond his office of CEC and, if RV thought fit, could serve as the country’s home minister,” reads the book.”A kind of euphoria had possessed the civilian, a surge of power, a suffusion of energy,” Gandhi says in his latest book.In early 1991, Congress had withdrawn its support from prime minister Chandra Shekhar’s government, alleging that it had spied on Rajiv Gandhi.Chandra Shekhar stepped down and, with no other party able to provide a stable alternative, fresh elections were called.Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination by a suicide bomber associated with the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), a militant separatist organization from Sri Lanka, came right in the middle of the election campaign.According to Gandhi’s diary on that day, Seshan, credited with ushering in major electoral reforms during his tenure as the 10th CEC between December 12, 1990 and December 11, 1996, was “present throughout” the tense situation, being “bossy and trying to take charge”.However, none of Seshan’s suggestions were considered.
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