K.J. Rao

March 4: K.J. Rao, the election official credited with transforming the Bihar polls and who might have taken a shot at Bengal, has hung up his boots, winning accolades from the CPM that he did not get when in office.

Rao, who had been carrying on in advisory and consultative capacities in the Election Commission since his retirement four years ago, declined a fresh offer for an extension, citing “personal reasons”.

The decision was greeted with surprise in political circles as Rao is not known to leave a job half-finished. He had come down to poll-bound Bengal in January and February on a recce and was part of a team that weeded 13 lakh bogus voters off the rolls.

Though Rao had then touched a raw nerve in the CPM, which hit out at poll observers for courting publicity but took care not to name anyone, party secretary Anil Biswas today saluted him.

“K.J. Rao is a nice, good person. But I cannot comment on his move as it is purely a personal decision,” he said in West Midnapore after a meeting with party workers.

Just last month, the CPM had alleged that the Opposition was using “EC observers as poll agents” following successive visits Rao and his team made to Nadia and West Midnapore.

Rao put in his papers on Tuesday, a day before elections were announced in five states and a few days after the President had honoured him for his handling of the Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir polls.

Late this evening, Rao told a TV channel: “I have been associated with the Election Commission for over four decades. It is a very, very long period, and it is almost like my first home....

“I had to tell them that because of personal reasons, I am not able to continue.”

Earlier, chief election commissioner B.B. Tandon said in Delhi that Rao had thanked the poll panel for helping him do his duty but declined an extension offer.

Sources said that since the Bihar elections, the Election Commission had come across appeals to rein in Rao. The Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal had made a formal complaint against his alleged “minority bias”.

Digvijay Singh, the Congress in-charge of Bihar elections, and a Union minister known to be close to Lalu Prasad had claimed that Rao dubbed a locality in Bhagalpur a “Pakistani mohalla” and had demanded an apology from him.

They had also complained about the alleged “strong-arm tactics” used by Rao, who insisted on a five-phase poll and elaborate deployment of paramilitary forces.

The Election Commission had then stood by Rao, terming the allegations “baseless”. But it also issued guidelines on how the paramilitary should treat minority community voters, especially women in burqas.

Lalu Prasad also gunned for Rao, singling him out for the UPA defeat in Bihar. In contrast, the rival NDA coalition hailed its victory to slogans of “K.J. Rao zindabad”, leading to his being branded an “NDA sympathiser”.

Such was his status after the Bihar elections that a website declared he was ahead of chief minister Nitish Kumar in a “hero of the year” poll it conducted. Some are even believed to have written couplets to him.