NEW DELHI: Chief Election Commissioner Navin B. Chawla pooh-poohed BSP president and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s accusation that he and Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi were working at the “behest of the Congress” and said it was she who appreciated the Commission for conducting the Assembly elections in U.P. in 2007 in a fair manner.

Talking to journalists, Mr. Chawla recalled that Ms. Mayawati herself had come to the Commission’s office on a Sunday in 2007 and congratulated the EC for conducting free, fair and transparent elections in that State.

Ms. Mayawati, earlier in the day at a press conference in Lucknow, accused the EC of being “partial” and said that it seemed the EC had not taken kindly to a Dalit ki beti (daughter of a Dalit) being the Chief Minister. Like her political foes, the Commission too did not want her to become Prime Minister, she alleged.

Ms. Mayawati alleged that Mr. Chawla and Mr. Quraishi were part of the Congress coterie. She said free and fair elections could not take place as long as these two officials were in the EC.