Gaya, Sept. 13: Is the office of the Gaya district magistrate jinxed?

The superstitious could reply in the affirmative as no less than four DMs have been ticked off and the fifth one had a close shave.

One district magistrate had also been suspended for alleged dereliction of poll duty.

The process began with the Election Commission?s recommendation to suspend then Gaya DM Rajbala Verma on charges of not handling the 1995 Assembly elections properly. Polling in the entire Gaya (Town) Assembly constituency was countermanded and repolls ordered following a free-for-all and large-scale booth grabbing.

The government, however, sat on the suspension order and took its time to implement the same. Verma eventually got away with only a transfer instead of the axe the poll panel had ordered.

But S.M. Raju was not as lucky as Verma. He became the first DM in the country to be suspended on charges of laxity in the discharge of poll duties. On that occasion ? the 1998 Lok Sabha elections ? the Election Commission saw to it that its recommendation for Raju?s suspension was immediately executed.

Raju was ?punished? for releasing the arrested Rashtriya Janata Dal MLA Vinod Kumar Yadavendu during the poll period. The Election Commission had directed the DM to immediately re-arrest the MLA. When Raju failed to do so, the panel ordered his suspension.

Again, during the 2004 parliamentary elections, then DM Brajesh Mehrotra was put under the EC scanner and subsequently removed from the post.

Now, it is the turn of Chaitanya Prasad to face the heat during election time. That the axe would fall on some senior official of the district became apparent on September 7 during the review of poll preparations by Chief Election Commissioner B.B. Tandon.

Prasad has been transferred to Patna and Sandeep Poundrick, his replacement, assumed charge yesterday.

The CEC was not too pleased with the poll preparations in Magadh division, as suggested by the long faces of the district officials who attended the meeting with Tandon.

Only two Gaya DMs have passed the EC test in the past 10 years. In 1996, Rajeev Gauba conducted the elections smoothly and emerged untainted despite some adverse reports by the EC observers.

To Gauba?s credit, he not only conducted the elections smoothly, but also succeeded in reining in the EC observers by apprising the commission of the misuse of official facilities by them.

Amrit Lal Meena, on the other hand, had a close shave and a ballot box faux pas almost cost him his job.

According to observers, the ?this will not happen to me? feeling among Verma?s successors has often resulted in complacency, putting the DMs at great risk.