On Saturday morning I was struck by chief election commissioner SY Quraishi’s decision to get Mayawati’s statues covered. [Read the EC order here] I welcomed this on my twitter. In my humble opinion, Maya had erected these statues against any established norms of aesthetics, culture and probity. The fig leaf that the statues were as per her mentor Kanshi Ram’s wishes could have hardly been a plausible excuse. Related to Maya’s statues were those ubiquitous elephants etched in stone out of your money and mine. I was glad Quraishi wanted them covered too. A wag wondered why he wanted to waste so much cloth: how about black paint instead!

Jokes apart, I thought the matter ended there. But to my surprise, one of India’s top social media editors, a really serious and thoughtful writer, tweeted asking Quraishi if he would ban Mulayam Singh Yadav’s bicycle as well! By late Saturday, the question had assumed considerable ballast. Some were asking the CEC whether he would next cut off the 'hand,’ that symbolizes the Congress. Others wondered if the situation arose in Tamil Nadu, will Quraishi insist on elections at night, just so that the DMK's 'rising sun,’ doesn’t get undue advantage.

I wonder how a cycle, a hand or the rising sun are the same as Maya’s elephants (and busts) made by public funds. Are they?

There is another rather naive question agitating folks in the social media. These tweeples are asking what the EC was doing while stony busts and statues were coming up? Fair point, save for the fact that it betrays ignorance over the fact that EC assumes any power whatsoever between two sacrosanct dates, viz, the day the model code of conduct kicks in and the day the elected representatives are around to do their jobs.

Statues and busts that spring in between could be fought by the tigers in our press, the legislature or the judiciary; but the EC on its part is like a kitten with no power to  raise a meow!

But like Caeser’s wife, the EC has to emerge above suspicion. Quraishi may have to hold a full-blown briefing, tomorrow itself if possible, before his onslaught against Maya’s elephant gets twisted any further. If he does, you saw it first in Governance Now!

Final point. Isn’t it EC that recently refused to take away Maya’s elephant symbol? In a proceeding before the apex court, it stood by the BSP supremo and said the elephant is far too well enshrined in the voter’s mind as representative of the BSP.

In its order dated October 11, 2010 [you can read it here], EC had stopped short of freeing BSP's election symbol, but it had forewarned Mayawati:
 
“However, at the time of elections, the Commission would, no doubt, take appropriate steps and measures to see that the statutes of Ms. Mayawati and BSP’s symbol ‘elephant’ do not disturb the level playing field and give undue advantage to BSP vis-à-vis other political parties.”
 
The warning didn’t make anyone sit up then. In this case, could sleeping elephants, made out of public funds, have been left to lie?
 
Tail piece: I asked Quraishi whether he has a problem with elephants, per se. He laughed and assured me that I’m still free to tie an elephant in my drawing room. But like calendars displaying the PM are taken off from government offices, the stone elephants and their boss will have to get shrouded for the time being.