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Mira Pande arrives at Calcutta airport from Delhi on Friday. Telegraph picture
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June 28: In her hour of triumph, Mira Pande let “tension” dissolve and acknowledged she was happy. By evening, she was reminding herself not to relax but to brace for the “real challenge” ahead.
“It is a very clear verdict and I am very happy with the order. This is what we wanted,” Pande told The Telegraph outside the courtroom this afternoon after the Supreme Court had pronounced its ruling.
The state election commissioner, who arrived in Delhi last night, reached the court at 2.45pm — 15 minutes before Justice A.K. Patnaik and Justice Ranjan Gogoi took up the case.
She was armed with a bunch of files and accompanied by a joint secretary of the commission.
Pande, who took a seat in the enclosure meant for journalists, often kept her eyes shut as the proceedings progressed.
The 1974-batch IAS officer, who had taken early retirement in 2009 to assume charge as the state election commissioner, later said: “I was a little tense when I reached the courtroom. But now I am happy and relieved.”
After a brief break, when the court resumed to announce the decision, Pande sat with her lawyers and was seen having animated discussions with Samaraditya Pal, the barrister who headed the commission’s legal team for months.
After the verdict, Pande came out smiling, victorious on what had turned out to be one of the biggest days in the career of the former additional chief secretary of the cottage and small-scale industries department.
A senior official of the commission said that her relief was well earned after several months of working seven days a week, often 18 hours a day.
“She will turn 64 next month. She is acutely diabetic and also suffers from hypertension and related ailments. She needs regular medical attention. But none of that stopped her from leading from the front, from sustaining (the battle) for so long. She is truly an inspiration,” said a senior colleague.
Pande — an MSc in social planning from the London School of Economics who loves to read Elizabethan playwrights and Mughal history in her spare time, besides listening to eastern classical music — has remained undaunted in the face of scathing attacks on her and her office.
She has been at the receiving end of relentless verbal assaults from the ruling party. Her office has been receiving letters with death threats. ( )
Colleagues said she had always laughed off such threats and none of the attacks had stopped her from staying the course.
“She kept telling us that we would win because we were doing the right thing, we were for the good, we were fighting for the people’s right to free, fair and peaceful elections. If she was nervous, she never let it show and our morale wasn’t affected,” said a junior colleague this evening.
“She was demoralised and lost hope sometimes, especially when matters went on and on in Calcutta. But she believed and made us believe that this day would come,” he added.
Co-workers said she had been neglecting her health, pushing “too hard” and “going all out” to take care of the legal affairs and the election arrangements. The “first thing” she ought to do now is get some rest, they said.
But Pande said over the phone from Delhi: “This is no time to relax. The real challenge of actually conducting the elections lies ahead.”
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