Former Chief Election Commissioner Reveals PMO Job Offer Based on Religion and Manmohan Singh's Concern Over Election Code Violation

Former chief election commissioner SY Quraishi reveals in his new book, India and I: A Hundred Memories, Not a Memoir, that the idea of violating the election code of conduct was so concerning for former prime minister Manmohan Singh that he summoned Quraishi to his residence in 2012 and told him he “will commit suicide” if Quraishi thought the Congress was violating the model code during the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Quraishi also writes in the book, published by Hachette and releasing on July 16, how he declined the post of joint secretary in the PMO that he was offered only on account of being a Muslim. Talking with FE on the phone, he confirmed that he was then explicitly told to prepare a list of alternative candidates that had to be ‘only Muslim’. In the chapter titled ‘The PMO Posting I Refused’, Quraishi reveals how he was offered the post of joint secretary in the PMO in the 1990s on the basis of his religion, which he refused to take up. He writes: “The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was a dream posting for most officers: prestigious, powerful, close to the nerve centre. Yet for me, it raised three concerns. First, I did not want to leave a job that energized me. Second, I had silently decided to avoid three places, home, defence and the PMO, because, as a Muslim, I feared ‘extra vetting’. The idea offended me. I was an IAS officer, secular to the bone; I did not want my religion to become an additional file on someone’s table.” Quraishi writes how he managed to wriggle out of the situation by ’emotionally’ persuading NK Sinha, then additional secretary in the PMO, and also his next-door neighbour, that he wanted to focus on his two children who were both taking the Board exams that year. And while Sinha immediately responded to Quraishi’s concern that he was selected on basis of his religion, saying “There is no quota”, and that “minority matters sometimes benefited from a Muslim perspective”, later, KR Venugopal, then secretary to the prime minister, told Quraishi: “‘Yaqoob, you did the right thing. I had suggested your name earlier and was told, ‘We already have one Muslim’. You were being considered through that lens.’” Ultimately, the incumbent, Imtiaz Ahmad Khan, was given a two-year extension. Speaking with FE, Quraishi said: “Even in those days there was a prejudice against Muslims. I declined the post as I wanted to be considered on the basis of merit and not my religion. Venugopal told me he had proposed my name for the PMO six months before I was offered this post, but it was declined as ‘there was already a Muslim in the PMO’. So this confirmed there was a quota system, even if it was one post.” He also shared with FE that when he was told to suggest alternative candidates, “I was told to prepare a list of only Muslim names, and I drew up a list of over 30 names. In the end, they decided to give the incumbent an extension. But they surely needed a Muslim.” The election code controversy involved then law minister Salman Khurshid in January 2012, who, while campaigning for his wife Louise Khurshid, seeking a re-election from Farrukhabad constituency, promised at a rally that if his party came to power, it would raise the quota for Muslims in jobs from 4.5% to 9%. The BJP complained of a model code violation, after which the Election Commission censured Khurshid. Quraishi writes in the chapter ‘The Day the Prime Minister Said the Unthinkable’, that when he raised the issue with Harish Khare, then prime minister’s press secretary, asking him to take it up with the PM, Quraishi got a call from Manmohan Singh the very next day, asking him to meet the PM. “We fixed 7 pm. When I reached his residence that evening, Dr Singh was waiting at the door. He led me in and, before we had even settled, said in a voice that carried genuine anguish: ‘Harish told me what you said. If that is what you think, I will commit suicide.’” Quraishi writes further: “‘I had absolutely no idea,’ he said. ‘If I had known, I would have blasted them. If ever you have something to say, just pick up the phone and call me.’ Then he added something I’ve never forgotten: ‘The Election Commission is not just India’s pride; it is the soul of our democracy. If we lose that, we lose everything.’” Quraishi said he was shocked at the PM’s words. “‘Mein toh unke mooh noch leta’, were Manmohan Singh’s exact words,” he told FE. He recalled how when he complained to Harish Khare that some Congress ministers were indulging in loose talk that the EC was getting arrogant over Khurshid’s censure, warning that it would take just one comment to the press to raise a political storm, Khare immediately promised to take it up with the PM, and Quraishi got a call from Manmohan Singh the next day.