The Times of India:Tuesday,January 17, 2012.
INDORE: The Election Commission (EC) on poll mode might claim credit for thinking of covering up UP chief minister Mayawati's statues and all her sandstone elephants, but it was a man from obscure Neemuch who got the equally elephantine Mayawati plaudits in the UP government website to be axed.
Chandra Shekhar Gaur, a 44-year old private firm employee, who has also been into some RTI activism on the side, got it done after email exchanges with the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) SY Quereshi and Deputy Election Commissioners.
It was not just Mayawati, his efforts were equally directed at the Manipur CM's glorification in that state government's website. On January 12, Chandra Shekhar Gaur mailed to all three officials requesting them to order the removal of the photographs and puff content of the CMs of UP and Manipur from their government's official website, under the model code of conduct. He stressed that the governments of the three other states going to poll _ Uttarkhand, Punjab and Goa had already done so. tnn
His mail argued that if EC could order that all Mayawati statues and stone elephants, suggestive of the BSP election symbol, be covered up on the ground that no candidate or party can use government funds and land for poll advertising, the official government websites too cannot be exempted.
EC officials mailed him back saying all such material would be removed in 24 hours. Gaur kept a watch on the sites, but found nothing had happened in the UP website, though the Manipur government had promptly heeded EC orders.
Gaur mailed the EC again the next day asking to look into it. The officials responded, assuring that they were working on it, and all such content will be off the site in a few hours.
The office of Vinod Zutshi, DEC, confirmed to TOI that EC had taken cognisance of Gaur's initiative, and taken the corrective measures.
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