• Hello, and welcome to Walk the Talk. I am Shekhar Gupta, and my guest this week is someone who can be described as the chief custodian of the most valuable brand in Indian democracy -- the Election Commission of India. Mr Gopalaswami, Chief Election Commissioner, welcome to Walk the Talk.

Good morning.

• And you walk your talk. First Bihar, the Uttar Pradesh elections now, on to Goa . . .

Well, it's been an exciting period, the last two-and-a-half months. What does the UP election tell us? Are we satisfied? We are satisfied. Happy? Yes happy, but also sad. I must say that it is with a mixed feeling that we have seen the election go through. What is the reason? The very use of a massive amount of Central paramilitary force is a thing that I am not very happy with.

• Yes, how many companies would that be?

An average of 680 companies for the seven phases. That means almost 5 lakh service personnel. That's not a very happy situation.

• These are all from Central paramilitary forces and other states.

Mostly the Central paramilitary forces, but supplemented with state forces. The fact is that when we met them before the elections, every political party said it doesn't have any faith in the state police force. Bring in the Central forces. That's a sad thing. After all, the state force is the one that has to be in the state and do the work for the state. If you can't trust them, I don't know . . .

... contd.