Former, serving babus eyeing poll fray under watch

The National Election Watch, a Delhi-based NGO working on cleaning the electoral system, now plans to keep an eye on government servants "working purely on political lines while in the service" and seek or make an "easy post-retirement or mid-service entry" into politics to contest polls.

"The time has come to keep watch on the government servants who nurture dreams to join political parties either immediately after retirement or resign their posts to contest polls," Anil Bairwal, national coordinator of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), said.

Till now,the agency has only been focusing on the political parties and elected MLAs and MPs to study their criminal past and assets they possess — a factor that political parties often weigh while granting them tickets.

Bairwal pointed out that an IAS officer, Prem Singh Draik, had resigned last month and has been given a BJP ticket while another officer, Hridey Ram, quit his post as Additional Deputy Commissioner (Kaza) to contest assembly byelection from Renuka earlier this year.

Releasing data on Himachal Pradesh MLAs, many of them again in the fray, he said the 68-member Assembly has 20 "crorepati" members.

Further, two out of three Independent MLAs also figure in the list of crorepatis.

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