Join the BJP. Contest the election from Pathanamthitta. Win the election. You could then become a Union minister.
These are not words attributed to a BJP leader.
According to former Kerala Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson, these were words spoken to him by Gyanesh Kumar during a flight to Delhi in 2016.
At that time, Gyanesh Kumar was a serving IAS officer. Thomson was serving as Kerala’s Chief Secretary.
Thomson says Kumar was speaking very positively about Narendra Modi and his growing popularity in Kerala. He then asked Thomson whether he would be interested in contesting the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Pathanamthitta on a BJP ticket. Thomson says Kumar was very persuasive, but he declined. 
Now, let me be absolutely clear about what I am saying.
I am not saying that because a person once advocated for a particular political party, that person must necessarily be biased towards that party.
I am saying something much simpler.
When a person is a serving bureaucrat and, while in service, actively persuades a fellow senior bureaucrat to enter electoral politics through a particular political party, recommends that party as an option and speaks of the possibility of becoming a Union minister after winning an election, it inevitably creates a reasonable perception of political proximity.
And when that same person later becomes the Chief Election Commissioner of India, that perception cannot simply be wished away.
The Chief Election Commissioner does not have to merely claim to be impartial.
The office requires a person to be above a reasonable perception of political allegiance.
Can you can look at the person entrusted with overseeing India’s elections and genuinely say, without hesitation, that you see him as completely independent of political allegiance.
If you can. Good.
If you cannot, then we have to ask ourselves, dispassionately, whether such a person should be entrusted with the responsibility of being the Chief Election Commissioner of India.
Because the person who conducts India’s elections must not merely be impartial. He must be seen to be beyond reasonable political suspicion.
That is the standard the office demands.
And that is the question every Indian should ask himself today.
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