Vadra incident, official's transfer not linked: EC

The Election Commission has denied that an IAS officer, who was stationed as an election observer in Uttar Pradesh, was transferred for having stopped a convoy of Congress campaigner and Priyanka Gandhi's husband Robert Vadra.

The official, Pawan Sen, had stopped Vadra while the latter was headed towards Salon area of the Amethi district in Uttar Pradesh, leading more motorcycles than the permitted number and was later found to have been transferred to Goa, which is also facing elections.

However, the Election Commission has denied that the transfer was a due to Sen's action against Vadra, a businessman and the son-in-law of India's most influential political family, the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, that leads the ruling Congress party at the Centre.

Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi said that Sen's transfer was not linked to the incident and his shift to Goa has been put on hold till Feb 19 when Amethi goes to vote as part of the third phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh.

"This decision has been baselessly linked to certain enforcement action taken by the particular officer in his capacity as an election observer in an incident involving Shri Robert Vadra," the poll panel was quoted as saying.

"The officer acted in accordance with the law and fully in conformity with the instructions of ECI. The decision to post Shri Sen as the District Election Officer in South Goa was in process for a week, based on the need to replace the present DEO in that district," it said.

"Sen was found most suitable for the post and his appointment was accordingly ordered by the Commission well before the incident in CSM Nagar district took place," the EC said, adding that the decision was in process for a week.

"To avoid misinterpretation by some mischievous people, we have since kept on hold his transfer. He will be relieved from his election observer duty only after the polls are over on February 19," Quraishi was quoted as saying.

He added that a poll panel team that had visited Goa last week, had received complaints that the South Goa Collector may not be impartial and and Sen was "the only IAS officer available to us" and the 2005 batch official coincidentally belonged to the Goa cadre.